Things left unsaid...

It appears this is another popular post to do so I thought I would do it too...because I'm a follower, not a leader...lol

Here's how it works:

…you write a bunch of stuff you’ve never said to certain people and then swear to never tell anyone who each statement goes to.

If you want to know if a certain statement is about you, e-mail me and I'll tell you which one I wrote about you. And like a very smart friend said on her website, if I didn't write anything about you, you should probably feel flattered.

1. I can't believe that I wasted so much time and energy on you. You were a complete waste of my time and I regret every waking, sleeping second I spent thinking about you or talking to you or spending time with you or talking about you or "dreaming" about you. You are a waste of perfectly good air. All you wanted was one thing and I regret ever knowing you. I hope I never see you again.

2. I totally didn't deserve you in my life. I treated you poorly and I took you for granted. I'm sorry that I treated you so badly. I really did care very much for you. And though we have gone our seperate ways, I wish you all the best and I just want to say I'm sorry for how I treated you.

3. I have never liked you. I only tolerate you because you are a friend of someone I love very much. I hate that you are so disrespectful to people especially those around you. And I think that you are greedy.

4. When we first met, I thought you were a little bit of a snob but I thought you were so pretty and I really wanted to get to know you better. Though we aren't super close now, I still consider you my friend and we have had so many fun times together and I really appreciate all that I have learned from you. I hope you know that I still care about you and that I think about you often.

5. I adore you! Words don't even begin to describe how deeply I appreciate you. I think about you on a daily basis and wish that we could hang out more. Thinking about you brings a smile to my face every time I think about you. I am so glad we are friends and I know that will never judge me. I just love you!

6. I am glad we have become friends. Even though we are related we never really were friends but I'm grateful for the friendship we have developed over the last few years. I really really love you and am grateful for you.

7. I love you more than words can say. I always am glad to see you but appreciate you and our relationship more when we have been away from each other for a while. You have taught me so much and I am really glad I get to be yours

8. Okay, let's face it...it takes a lot of effort for us to get along but I am so glad that you are in my life and that it takes so much work to be your friend. I love you regardless of what you do or say or what you think or even what you think of me. We might have a boring relationship if it didn't take effort...lol. I love you.

9. I don't really tell you often enough but I love you. You have been thorough a lot lately and I am glad that you are someone I can laugh with and be honest with. And you know me better than I give you credit for.

10. My life could not go on without you in it. I would literally curl up and die if you weren't there for me. You love me no matter what and you are my bestest friend. I am sure of my relationship/friendship with you. I never doubt you or what you tell me.

11. I think that you are better than you think you are. I think you have so much beauty in you and I hope one day you will see what I see in you.

12. I just think you are so talented and an amazing mother. You are the kind of mother I hope I can be when Tanner get's older. I think you are so wonderful and even though I don't think that you consider me a "friend" we are aqquainted with one another and I am glad that I know you.

13. Even though when we were younger, I always felt judged by you, I have recently come to realized that you and I are a lot more simialr in our feelings and thoughts. I am sorry that we weren't better friends when we were younger. I do love you and I think that you are a wonderful person even though you I know you feel a lot of challenges in your life.

14. You were my first friend when I was a youth and I have always hoped that we would stay in touch because I always thought you were so wonderful and amazing. I don't know if I ever told you that but I wanted you to know that. And I love your name.

15. I misjudged you and I know that our friendship isn't the same. I was a jerk and I'm sorry (even though I've told you that about 100 times) that I mis-judged you. You and I had the best of times when I was pregnant and you were always there for me. You are so sweet and I miss those days when we hung out in front of the t.v. (I was on bed rest people...I wasn't lazy). I hope our friendship will become stronger.

16. I love that we can be ourselves with each other. We go way back...lol and I trust you so much with what I tell you. I love being able to be crazy and silly with you and you with me. Even though we are older, I love that there is still some "sameness" that we have with each other.

17. You are always there when I seem to need some kind of encouragement or words of kindness. I really am glad you are part of my life.

18. I just think you are so fun. I love spending any time with you and I think that you are pretty awesome. You are super talented and knowledgeable and I'm glad we are friends. I love you.

19. I am glad that our young friendship has seen harder days already. I know that it has grown because of more challenging times but 90% of the time it's all about having fun. I think you are so cute and you are very dedicated to what you believe in. You were my rock in many things, even though I'm not sure I told you that. I miss you so much and our talks. You always seemed to be there for me when I really needed it and I am glad that I could depend on you to give me a better perspective of my life and problems.


So that's all that I can think of for now. Some of these are about people who aren't on Facebook but whatever...
I couldn't think of something to write about every single person but for the ones that came to mind as I was doing this.

My Alias.

Bobbi had this on her blog and I thought it was kind of neat.

YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car) – Billy Civic

YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fav. ice cream flavor, favorite cookie) Bubblegum Peanut Butter (so NOT a gangsta name. I would be killed for having that sissy name)

YOUR “FLY Guy/Girl” NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name) M-Col

YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal) - Purple Chinchilla

YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)- Elaine Drum(heller)

YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first) – Colma

SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favorite color, favorite drink put “The”) The Yellow Water (sounds like pee)

NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers)-Don Robert

STRIPPER NAME : ( the name of your favorite perfume/cologne, favorite candy) Curious Chocolate

WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names ) Susan Stewart

A little more about me

A friend recently e-mailed this to me and I thought I'd post it.


This is for your entire life:
( ) Smoked a cigarette
( ) Drank so much you threw up
( ) Crashed a friend's car
( ) Stolen a car..but returned it the same night unharmed
(x) Been in love
(x) Been dumped
(x) Been laid off/fired
(x) Quit your job
( ) Been in a fist fight
(x) Snuck out of your parent's house
(x) Had feelings for someone who didn't have them back.....
( ) Been arrested
(x) Gone on a blind date
(x) Lied to a friend but only to protect feelings
(x) Skipped school
( ) Seen someone die
(x) Been to Canada
(x) Been to Mexico
(x) Been on a plane
(x) Been lost
(x) Been on the opposite side of the country
( ) Gone to Washington, DC
( )Swam in the ocean
(x) Felt like dying
(x) Cried yourself to sleep
( ) Played cops and robbers
(x) Recently colored with crayons
(x) Sang karaoke
(x) Paid for a meal with only coins...
(x) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't
(x) Made prank phone calls
(x) Made a friend cry
(x) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose
(x) Caught a snowflake on your tongue
(x) Danced in the rain
(x) Written a letter to Santa Claus
(x) Been kissed under the mistletoe.....
(x) Watched the sun rise with someone you cared about.
(x) Blew bubbles
( ) Made a bonfire on the beach
( ) Crashed a party
(x) Gone roller-skating
(x) Gone Ice-skating
(x) Gone Fishing
(x) Gone Toilet Papering
(x ) Gone to a major/national league game
( ) Gone to Europe

Mixed feelings

I have just had the best weekend I have ever had in a very long time. Relaxing, calming, peaceful, fun. First we had to go up to Calgary for speech on Friday. Then Tanner had a much needed haircut. Then we were suppose to go to the zoo and to Calaway Park but it didn't work out, which was fine. We had some errands to do and that gave me time to do them. We went to Once Upon A Child and traded in a bunch of our Videos (hello, Calliou....he is soooooo stinkin' whiney) and I got some Sunday shoes for Tanner. Then we had dinner and then after dinner we visited my friend Erica and her little boy Josh. We had a really good time and Tanner really enjoyed his visit. We stopped in at my sisters and Tanner was so cute over there. They have two cats and Tanner was having a ball playing with them. On Saturday, we drove out to Drumheller. We went to the Hoodoos which I haven't been to since I was a kid. Tanner LOVED them. My Mom told him that they were the mountains that the Dinosaurs played at. Then after we checked into our fancy motel room and had lunch, we headed for the museum. Tanner was pretty nervous. It didn't help that Melany, my sister, told him the night before that the dinosaurs come alive in the museum and eat people. Not impressive. So he ended up being okay. He was nervous a bit but we didn't stay long. Then we headed up to the old family farm. This was a very sad and disappointing thing to see. It has been broken into numerous amounts of times and it is basically destroyed. Because no one lives up there it's easy to break into and do what you want with it. There isn't a window left at all so they've all been boarded up. Then, the kitchen sliding doors have been totally broken so birds live in the roof and in some of the rooms upstairs. It's very sad. People have stolen EVERYTHING out of there. They've stolen the stove, the bathtub, the sink, the kitchen cupboards, and they have started to pull the wood off the walls. It was not a pretty site. I went upstairs (I know, it was brave of me seeing as there are birds flying around up there in pitch dark) and got some pictures of the rooms up there. I just wanted to cry after being there. I don't understand why people could do something so horrible as they have done to the farm house. It makes it clearer to me that something needs to be done with the land the farm is sitting on. It just gets worse and worse. I just kept thinking about all the time we spent up there as kids and how fun it was to be there. Anyways, that's enough about that.
Tanner has qualified to be in this program called program unit funding (PUF) and he had his first day at school there. We can still keep him in the parented preschool he's in but this is an additional thing. It's 4 days a week and every Wednesday they go swimming in Lethbridge. Monday is music and story time, Tuesday is gymnastics, and Thursday is speech. I have some mixed feeling about it. We were originally in with the 4 year old PUF kids but then we got put in the 3 year olds (which he should be in, and is in now) but the 3 year olds have a lot of low functioning children and I am worried that it will disrupt Tanners progress that he's making and I worry that he will fall behind. Most of the children don't really even talk. Tanner just seems so old in that class. Yet, I don't want him to miss out on the opportunities that he has with this program. I guess we will take it one day at a time. I think the more opportunities he's given the better he will progress. It's not that it even bothers me that he's in a "special needs" group, it's just that he has made a lot of progress this last year and I really don't want him to fall back. I know he needs a little extra help and I'm happy to be in a place where he can recieve it, I just have concerns, that's all. I guess that's natural. I didn't feel at all concerned about the parented pre-school he is in. I know how it works and I know he feels safe there. I'm not sure why the mild uneasiness. Anyway, I'm sure it will be fine once we get into the groove of things. I think that's it for now.

Could it be any more perfect.

This weekend, we had an amazing, wonderful, splendid weekend. We had to go up to Calgary for Tanner's speech therapy on Friday and we had a great day. My Aunt came with us and Tanner had a much needed haircut after the appointment. Tanner's speech therapist said that by 4 years of age he should be talking like an adult and that he should be understood by 75% of the people that meet him. The adult thing, I don't really agree on but hey, what do I know...I'm just Tanner's mother, not a trained speech therapist.

Is it real

Do you ever watch a show and you know this is NOT real life but you cry when a certain situation happens? Like if you were watching a show and someone died, you would cry like it happened to you? I am such a baby when it comes to that. I've been watching Grey's Anatomy and I find myself crying A LOT. When Denny dies (hello!!! I've watched this scene about 4 different times. The ending is always the same and yet I still cry like it's the first time I've seen it). Or when Mereidth almost dies and Derek comes to see her. I'm like a hormonal cry baby. But I could be having the best, happiest day and I'll still cry. Why is that? For me, it makes me think about my life and what I've been through in my life. I think that the top 5 things that have changed me or made me grow are:

1. My Dad dying. That changed my life in a way that is indescribable in any words. I grew more than words can say during my grieving process, which I am not afraid to say took my 8 years to deal with. It was a very long, difficult thing for me but it's done. That's not to say that I don't still miss my Dad. Some days are so much harder than others but for the most part, I'm okay with knowing that I'll see him in heaven again. But I am human.

2. Getting married. This was and still is a huge change for me. Growing up with all sisters really opened my eyes to boy things. Even something as simple as having the toilet seat put down. I fell in twice when we were first married so I made a sign and put it over the toilet and it hasn't happened since. You just don't think about those things if you've never lived with boys before.

3. Having Tanner. I could write a novel about this subject and my feelings but...I've said it before on this blog, it changed my life in a way that I did not expect. Not only having a baby, but having a baby born with complications is completely life changing. At least it was for me. I would not change a single thing or trade it in for anything in the world. I have loved being pushed to my limits and growing through my experiences with Tanner.

4. Being diagnosed with pre-diabetes. I'd rather not go into a lot of detail about this but it was difficult for me to deal with when I was first diagnosed.

5. Moving away from my family. I have so many feelings and thoughts on this. I love my family sooooo sooooo much but moving away from them has been one of the best decisions Matt and I have made. It has changed me and I wish sometimes we would have done it sooner.

When I think about my life, I think about these things the most. And my crazy teenage years (don't ask!!!). And watching other people on T.V. go through similar situations makes me reflect on my life and the things that I have gone through to get me to where I am today. Mostly it makes me grateful for what I have and what I've had to go through to be the person I am.
I know that the life I live and lead is real and that what I watch is just made up. I guess emotions are a much stronger thing than I thought they could be in watching something fake. Maybe I'm just silly. Oh well. That's me.

Tanner has been a bit more whiny than usual lately. I'm not sure why. I am hoping that our trip to Calgary will help. He doesn't see my family as much as when we lived up there. So I think he's missing them and wanting to see them more. He is getting a lot better at talking on the phone with my family. He knows his birthday is coming up and talks about it every other day. It's so cute. He says "I'm not 4 yet. I'm 3." His memory is sharper than a tack. He remembers EVERYTHING you say. If you tell him he can watch a movie tomorrow, he'll remember the next day. He's getting so big. Which is scary and exciting all at the same time.

Anyway, I think that's about it for now.

Almost fuming

Today at Tanner's first day of parented pre-school we got some 'guidelines' that I'm a little leary about. Okay, well one of the guidelines. What is it...ah hah! I knew you were hoping I'd say what it was. We have been asked not to talk about our religion at the school. Okay, so why does that have my knickers tied in a small knot? I'll tell you why. Raymond is predominatley LDS, about 85%. So we were told that the school is a non-demoninational school, which is news to me. To me, not talking about religion would be like not talking about about my spouse because someone has certain opinions about marriage. Why is religion such a "hot" topic? And the other thing is that I firmly believe that there is a clear and definite difference about talking about what you believe and practice and preaching it. So we can't even talk about chuch related anything with anyone while in the building. So if there is someone from my ward (which there is) or another member of the church there, we can't even talk about anything religion related. The teacher said it's to make sure that everyone is included. The teacher herself is LDS so it's just kind of ironic that we aren't allowed to speak anything about religion. Yet just before the snack is brought out, we sing a little "prayer" song with the word God in it. So how is that not religious related? Religion is religion. If you move here, don't people know that it's highly populated with LDS members? If you don't like it, leave. No I'm totally kidding on that one. But come on, really? So if someone asked me what my lesson was about on Sunday, I have to go outside and talk to them about it??? I just think that it's a little crazy, maybe people taking crazy pills, making these rules. Anyways, that's my piece, or should I say peace, on that subject.
Tanner loved his first day and he was pretty good. We have a parent teaching time where we learn about something and bring up concerns etc. The kids go to the play room and play (with another adult or two) while the parent stays and learns. I took some pictures of Tanner before we left and took some of him playing etc. I know that it will really help him and get him to be where he needs to be with his minor delay in fine motor skills. Plus, I know it really really improves his speech. Everytime we go up to speech therapy, Allison says how much better he is doing. So I know we are on the right road. I thought at first that not being financally able to go up every other week might have made Tanner fall behind, but it hasn't. Once a month is still helping him. Plus now that he's getting OT, I just feel so much better about him feeling and being confident in being as close to other kids his age as possible. I don't want him to dislike school because he can't do certain things or say certain things. I want him to have the best possible chance there is at being as normal as possible.
Of course my eyes and mind are not blind to the fact that he physically looks different than other kids but I feel that him being as normal as otherwise possible will help him deal with that. I'm no dummy. I know there will be teasing and tears and hurt feelings but I also know that if we help to build his confidence strong and firm now, he'll be able to deal with those things better. I hope that makes sense. It does worry me a little bit at the thought that other kids will make fun of or say mean things about my beautiful, precious, amazingly wonderful boy, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. I know that the Lord will help Matt and I as his parents to know what to do and to know what to say to Tanner and how do deal with that stuff when it comes. I have complete faith that if we are doing our part in doing the best we can as parents now, it won't be as difficult later because the Lord will bless us with whatever we need. Weather it be knowledge or patience or whatever. I just know.
Tanner is so funny and cute lateley. He has this stall tactic that he does that on the very rare occasion, gets on my nerves. It's actually quite cute. Here's a sample:

Me: Tanner, it's time to brush your teeth and get ready for bed

Tanner: Whad you say?

M: It's time to get ready for bed sweetheart

T: WHAD you say?

M: come on, let's go

T:(in his loudest possible voice) WHAD YOU SAY??

He does this daily with other things as well. Especailly at meal times too.

The other thing he does is that he insists on having his own scriptures when we are reading them at night. He likes to look at the pictures in his. He especially loves the picture of Lehi and his family on the boat to the Promised Land. He gets this big, goofy, smiley grin when he looks at it. Like he was there or something. And he likes to read them by himself in bed at night. It's soooooo cute. We are so lucky to have him as our son. He is so amazing.

Anyway, I think that's all for now.

You're Watership Down!
by Richard Adams
Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you're actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You'd be recognized as such if you weren't always talking about talking rabbits.

I did this quiz about what book I am. This is what I got. If you want to take the quiz yourself go to:

www.bluepyramid.org

Here's a thought

This week has been crazy, busy, tiring...all of it. It went by way too quickly for me. On Monday we went to the Temple with my sister, Megan, and her husband, Dean. They came to our place after and we had a really nice visit. I love when I have people visit. It's so nice to have adult conversations. Plus, I talk a lot so I can talk A LOT! I guess blogging is a really good outlet. Anyway. I've had some really nice e-mails from my cousin and that's been really nice because it's not that often that our family gets together anymore. Why is that I wonder? I think it's because people seem to feel like family isn't as important or that it takes too much time to have a relationship with other people. We use to get together a lot. I loved having reunions and when all the cousins started getting married we'd all go to those. Now there are only 3 cousins that aren't married and everyone else is having kids. I just really love getting together and watching everyone and seeing how everyone is doing. Also, not everyone, even in your own family, has the same ideas. Everyone has their own opinion about certain things. Like this one time, we had this big family gathering out at the family farm in Drumheller and my Aunt was there with her recently new husband. My sister had brought her dog and my Aunt's husband was actually kind of mean and kicked the dog a little bit. He also said some hateful words about my sister's dog and dogs in general. What the heck! We all thought it was pretty un called for. But there's always one in every family. One family that has all the goody goodies, one family that has a broken family and children from different spouses, one family that is large and you can never seem to keep track of how many there are, one reasonably normal family and one that lives too far away to keep a good relationship with. I guess everyone hopes to fall in the "reasonably normal" category but not all do. And it's interesting that as we get older, we see where we might have fit.
Well, here's some really exciting news. Yesterday I made my first ever home made bread from scratch and home made raspberry jam. I was so happy. My Mom came down for a day and a half and she helped me with the jam...it was her recipie. It was my favorite jam in the whole wide world and even still, no one has EVER made better jam than her. I hope that mine turns out as good as hers. I remember her, every summer and fall, making the jam and coming home from school and there were jam jars all over the place and the huge massive pot she had for boiling the jars. And she made tons and tons and tons of jam. We had jam for at least 2 years. She had a massivley huge raspberry patch and we use to have to go out there and pick those berries for what seemed like hours. We were out there every Monday for FHE garunteed and usually 1 or 2 more times during the week. But we all had ice cream buckets and every time we picked, we picked till those buckets were so full you couldn't even squeeze air in between the berries. My Mom would go out every night after dinner and pick the berries. I ALWAYS chose to do the back of the bush where the fence was because no one else wanted to get scratched up. Plus, no one saw me eating the berries. I was actually doing my Mom a favor because if I didn't eat some berries, she would have had more work to do. And that's where all the best tasting berries were. Man was I ever smart! I just have a lot of fond memories over raspberries and raspberry.
It was actually cold enough here yesterday to turn on the furnace. It was nice to get in my bed last night and get down under the blankets and pull them up all around me. I loved it!
Well, I think that's all for now.

A little something

So I thought I'd write a few things that maybe everybody didn't know about me. They're just little tidbits of me. They are just a few of the many things that make who I am up.

1. The color purple makes me enormously happy. Even to look at it, I go from grumpy to happy.
2. I really am afraid of the dark
3. I worry constantly that Matt will get in an accident.
4. I would rather die than live without Tanner
5. I like to have my tupperware cupboard organized
6. I like to stay up
7. I eat ice cream even though I know I shouldn't and it makes me sick
8. I LOVE lots of parmesan cheese on my spaghetti.
9. I write in my address book with pencil only
10. I only eat cereal or toast for breakfast. If I eat anything else, I feel sick.
11. I was nominated and won super host at the Stampede
12. I love the smell of coffee
13. I had to ride my Dad's bike until I was 10 because I was the only one in our family who didn't have their own bike and for my 10th birthday, I got one.
14. I would never have a pet. I like other people's pets, but I wouldn't have one of our own
15. I hate wearing socks (even in winter)
16. I love getting personal mail (even though I don't get it that often)
17. I think that the molten lava cake at Chili's is better than you know what (I know this may be extreme, but it is so divinely, sinfully good)
18. I eat countable things in even numbers only (ie. cookies, doughnuts, candies, larger vegetables)...it's an ocd thing
19. I love weddings
20. I get really upset when people mis-interpret my words without asking me what exactly I really meant.
21. I have a birthmark that covers my entire upper left leg that I don't like people to see (only when I'm swimming can you see it)
22. I have a bad habit of watching myself in the mirror when I talk on the phone
23. I sing and dance in my car and don't care if people in the car next to me see me or make fun of me.
24. I always wear a long shirt or tank top under a shorter shirt because I don't like when you bend down or over and your under-garments show.
25. I LOVE to vacuum
26. I LOVE to do laundry
27. I don't like to put laundry away
28. I had my first peach cobbler yesterday (Aug.31)
29. I am registered an Linens and Things for my 30th birthday (in 2009)
30. I think my toes are super super ugly.