Homeless

Disclaimer: This post is really nothing but an angry rant. I am not an angry person. This is probably the most angry you will ever see me. Feel free to skip this post. I just needed to vent a bit.

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Last week, we went up to Washington for a little vacation with Seth's family. It was so wonderful! We had lots and lots of fun and have lots of great pictures. I was planning on being totally blogtastic this week. But I have a feeling it's not going to happen. At least for a few more days...

We got home from our amazing trip Saturday night. By the time we got back to our house in Provo, it was around one in the morning. We were exhausted and couldn't wait to just fall into bed. I opened the door and walked in. This is what I heard: "SQUISH SQUISH SQUISH" with each step I took. I looked down and realized that our carpet was soaked at the same moment I felt water soaking through my shoes. Great.

When we first moved into our apartment, we noticed that the carpets in the living room felt slightly damp. It was so slight, that we weren't sure if we were imagining it. Maybe it was just cold? But we called our management company and told them to send someone out to look at it, just in case. 

Well, no one ever came. We called a few more times, with this and a few more problems, and still no one has come to our house. I started to get a little irritated but because the carpet wasn't getting any worse, I just tried to be patient and not worry about it too much. 

Now, I'm really upset. We were gone for over a week, so we don't know how long the carpet has been like this. We do know it was raining a lot, so it may have been from that. But it's so wet that in places, you can see the water drops resting on the top of the carpet. And it doesn't seem to be drying at all either.

So at 1:30 on Saturday night, I called our management company and left them a very heated message. I knew no one was there and that no one would be there until today because of Memorial Day. However, I was mad. I'm not the kind of person that gets mad very easily. Or is very assertive or likes to talk to people on the phone or likes confrontation. At all. But I think I snapped. Our whole house smells like mildew and it's really disgusting. We've been trying to keep all of the doors closed and even put up a curtain so the smell would stay mostly in the living room. Somehow, it still finds a way to seep through.

Sunday morning, I woke up sick. Probably from all the mildew and stuff in the air. We didn't even make it to church on Sunday because I was sick and we were trying to get everything out of the living room. We really hope all of our furniture isn't damaged beyond repair. After moving everything, we sort of re-packed our still packed bags and headed up to my parents' house so we could shower without getting moldey again, and so we could sleep in clean air. We spent last night there too because we didn't want to come back here, then came back to Provo this morning for work. I'm not sure where we'll stay tonight. I feel a little bit homeless, living half at my parents' house, half out of suitcases from our vacation.

Not only will we need new carpet, but we really need to figure out where the leak is coming from. I really hope someone can find it. I went into our management office today and demanded that she get someone to come out here TODAY. The plumber called Seth and said he could probably come this afternoon or tomorrow morning. Well, he never came today. All I can say is, he better come tomorrow.

Sorry for the rant. If you can't tell, I'm really not very happy about this. Ok. Now I better go try to unpack and do some laundry... which I haven't done yet because all of our living room furniture is crowded into our kitchen and bedroom. There is not much space left to move around. 

Ugh.

Anyway, I'll try to blog about happier things later in the week. Maybe by then I'll be in a better mood.

*amber*

I Love Me

Valentines Day is coming up! And let me tell you, I LOVE my sweet husband so so much. I could go on and on about it for days. And probably will in several posts to come leading up to the big day (beware- it's my first V-day not single ok?)

Anyhow, this post is not about my love for my husband. Although he did inspire me. So really, it all goes back to him. I love him. But I'm getting sidetracked again. Later! I'll write about him later. This Valentines Day, I'm going to love my husband, but me too!

Today in my Women's Studies class, we talked about body image. Although it ended up being a sort of cliche discussion about women's body image, I spent most of the class evaluating my own self esteem.

And you know what? When it all comes down to it, I don't really like myself as much as I probably should! This is where it goes back to Seth. He tells me every day that he wishes I knew how good I am. Although I think he is really just blinded by love, it's true, I don't usually see very much good in myself.

And let's face it, I deserve a little more credit than that. I have been working my butt off this semester, I've done a lot of really cool things in my life, and I'm trying to make myself a better person. No, I'm not anywhere near perfect yet, but really who is? There are too many aspects in life to excel at all of them. We can only do so much.

I think that's what my problem is. I expect too much of myself. Sometimes I need to remind myself that there are only 24 hours in a day.

Now on to the image I have of myself (physically) because, let's face it, as women that has a HUGE affect on our self esteem. I grew up a dancer so I've always been very critical of my body. For New Years, I made a resolution to work out twice a week. Well... I haven't had time to get around to it. Now, although I still really want to and know it would make me feel healthier, I've been beating myself up about it too much. Almost every day I look in the mirror and feel fat. But I'm not really! Yes I've gained some weight, but Seth still continues to tell me I'm beautiful. From now on, I'm going to try and believe him. Yes, I do want to make it to the gym, but until weight becomes a health issue, I'm doing enough for now. I deserve to be satisfied.

There is far too much pressure to be perfect all the time. Down to the smallest pimple on our faces or split ends on our hair... This must stop now!!!

I saw this video on the Eliza Magazine blog. Eliza is a modest fashion magazine and they embrace real women more than any other fashion magazine I've seen. Anyway, I loved the video. Enjoy!


It just made me want to celebrate myself!!! A lot of those people said things about themselves that I have too and would usually be considered (flaws). However, those are the things that make us different and beautiful.

So, starting today, I will write at least three things I love about myself every day until Valentines Day. I'll start mostly with physical because that is what affects me a lot of the time. Here goes:

• I love my kaleidoscope eyes that change colors all the time and have almost every color imaginable in them (really)
• I love my freckles. I know they said it in the movie but I do. And freckles is Seth's new nickname for me. I think it's cute :)
• I love my fair skin. No I don't tan in the summer, and that's ok. It suits me.
• I love my curly hair. It's hard to manage sometimes but it's me. Quirky and unruly and crazy.
• I love my feet. They are not small or delicate or thin... my mom used to call them flinstone feet. But I like 'em nonetheless. I think they're cute and unique. Who needs to fit into crazy uncomfortable stilettos anyway?
• I love me!
  

One girl in my WS class is a counselor for high school aged girls in Salt Lake. For one of their sessions, she brought in mothers of some of the girls. Then she asked them to tell the group what was good about them. They all became uncomfortable and didn't know what to say. How sad for their daughters to see them that way! Likely, that's how the daughters have learned to view themselves as well.

I couldn't help but think of my mother. She has always been physically fit and beautiful. She works hard in everything she does and makes sure to maintain her physical health. However, I've never once heard her complain about looking fat or ugly. Never. Not even over the holidays when we eat and eat and honestly, she probably has gained weight, yet she stays positive and just returns to her workout routines after the holidays. I am grateful for my mom's wonderful example of self worth. As well as my dad's ways of always letting us know he thinks she's beautiful.

You're probably sick of reading by now, but this has really stuck out to me today. So, from henceforth, I will be looking in the mirror every day and letting you know what I discover. Here goes...


PS: I love you all. And you really are beautiful. Really.

*amber*

Stabbing Update

The three cuts reported last time have been healing up quite nicely. However, yesterday I was making stroganoff and as I was opening a can of cream of mushroom soup, the lid sliced my right ring finger. This is the first cut on the right hand. My right is the favorite of my two hands, so you can only imagine how distraught I was. I don't know what to do anymore!

Seth said he won't let me touch anything with an edge anymore. He didn't say sharp edge. Just an edge. I told him he has edges. Touche.

Cruel cruel world.

The stroganoff was yummy though!

*amber*

I'VE BEEN STABBED!!!

THREE TIMES!!! This is no joke people! This is serious. Lately, I've been having a little trouble in the kitchen. The knives have apparently decided to band against me. The last three times I have decided to do some serious cutting, they have cleverly wriggled their way out of my firm grasp and thrust their razor sharp blades into my helpless fingers. Here you will see all three victims of the stabbings in chronological order.

The third stabbing was committed this evening at around seven o' clock when I was innocently slicing a tomato for a delicious dinner of BLT's. Then, the knife violently turned on me. Why knife? WHY???!!! Seth has threatened to discontinue my knife privileges, but I am the victim here! Apparently it will remain up to me to put down this revolt of the demon blades and restore peace to my humble kitchen.

Knives, you better watch out. Knives and daggers may cut through matter but... um... spoons will never hurt me. It is resolved. I will resort to a boycott of all sharp kitchen utensils and opt for spoons until the this rebel band of cutlery decides to enter into peace negotiations. Take that.

My fingers hurt :(

*amber*

Our Little Friends.....

I HATE bugs. Hate em. Just so you are aware, this post is not about adorable babies dressed as some of the cuter members of the insect family (I was a ladybug for my first Halloween too... aww... how cute). It is about the harsh reality of these nasty nasty little creatures that love to torment humans. I couldn't bring myself to post a picture of one of those because even the pictures give me the total heebe jeebies. Yep, it's been one of those days...

This morning I woke up at 5:30 for one of my early morning writing sessions. I stepped out our bedroom door and blearily, looked around the room. A small movement caught my eye. In the crack between the tiles in our entryway was an earwig or some kind of long, disgusting creature with lots of wiggly legs, squirming around. GROSS! I watched it for a minute and it wasn't really going anywhere, so I just kept my eye on it. Then another movement caught my eye. About a foot away, was a potato bug, crawling on our carpet. I took Seth's flip flop (the one designated for bug killing,) and rolled that rolly poly right back onto the tile. When it finally gained the courage to open up from it's safe little ball again, alas it was on its back. I watched it struggle for a long time but it could not flip over no matter what it did. I began to feel sorry for the little guy, but I wasn't letting him out of my sight. Needless the say the writing wasn't going so well. Turns out I am a very diligent bug sitter.

As I watched my two little companions, yet another movement caught my eye. Seth and I have been aware of the small crack under our front door for sometime. However, we have never actually seen bugs get through it. I think we thought it was too small (but I was pretty sure that was where my two friends came from, seeing as they were right in front of it.) WRONG! From under the door popped a little ball, it almost looked like a little seed. Then the seed opened and another potato bug started crawling toward the carpet. This one was smaller. Perhaps the bigger one's baby, come to find its mommy in our house? More carefully, I rolled this one onto the tile as well. When it finally opened it was stuck on its back too. Poor poly bug. Although it was kind of funny that they both somehow ended up on their backs.

These three new acquaintances kept my company until Seth woke up. I showed him our little zoo. He went straight to the bathroom, grabbed a wad of toilet paper, smashed all three into it, and flushed them down the toilet. All the while I was protesting and dealing with my inner conflict of attachment to my new friends. However, once the reality of their deaths set in, I realized that they had only acted helpless to win my love. After that, they probably would have swarmed and done who knows what gross things buggies do. Evil little tormentors, evil.

After my only class of the day, Seth and I headed home from school (9:00 am) to make a yummy omelet. We realized that we were out of sour cream! So I rushed to the store to pick some up. On the way back into our house, I saw another nasty. We have these little eight legged friends that live in our entryway. They are actually not that small and look EXACTLY like black widows except they have a white spot instead of the red hourglass. They scare the life out of me. Imagine if one of those got in our house... joarjhflkanfnanlkasdnf AHHHHH!!! I would probably faint. And then wake up and be sick. Anyway, we've found three of these so far. I opened the door, yelled for Seth, he came running and heroically slayed the beast. So scary.

Later in the day when Seth was at work, I decided to take a shower. I started to water to let it warm up. When I decided the water was sufficiently warm, I opened the shower curtain to find a BIG BROWN SPIDER swimming for its life! Oh yes, we also have these brown spiders in our house. We have seen them many times. Our first was before we actually moved in to our house and were hanging out watching a movie. Since we had no furniture yet, I laid down on the floor. I felt something moving against my arm. I jumped up and saw one of the spider scurrying away. EWWW! Since then, there have been many more encounters. Anyway, back to the issue at hand, I skillfully used what little movement our shower head allows to manipulate the spider down the drain. Then I turned on the tub faucet full blast and scalding hot, just for good measure. Then I put in the plug and proceeded to take my shower. Yes, the shower filled up with water, but I wasn't taking the chance of having that little nasty come swimming back out at me.

However, on a more positive note, I KILLED A SPIDER TODAY!!! I can never do that. I am so afraid of them that I can't even kill them (as you may have been able to tell by my waiting for Seth to kill all the other bugs today.) When I was younger, I made my brother kill the spiders in my room. When he was older and less gullible, I bribed him with small toys, candy, even money. But today, I faced my fear. True, I was several feet away from the spider. And also true that there was no way the spider could have actually gotten to me. But regardless of circumstance or argument, I did it. I feel so accomplished.

In conclusion, bugs are gross. They love to taunt and torment me. If you see one, stay away. Or find a boy to kill it. The end.

*amber*