Life

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Rejoice in All Things

Published June 2, 2014 by Malia

Everyone’s getting sick.  The boy started getting sick last week.  Mom got sick this weekend.  I made a point of trying to steer clear of the sickies.  I thought I had succeeded avoiding illness, until I started driving to work today.  I feel pretty rotten, but thankfully I’ve managed to avoid the stuffed up nose.

Tonight, after work, I stopped quickly at Walmart, and as I was passing through the grocery section, I heard some of the employees screaming at each other.  I don’t know what had caused the argument, I just know that one employee told another employee to “go to hell.”  After I walked away, I got to thinking.  In general, I like my job.  Sure, there’s rough moments, but all in all, it’s a good job.  However, I find that lately I gripe about it quite a bit.  You know who doesn’t gripe about his job?  The boy.  He listens to my whining, and honestly if anyone should be griping about their job, it should be him.  He works really hard, and I know it’s not his dream job, and yet he doesn’t complain.  And he’s so ridiculously patient and listens to all my griping.  I feel really awful about that.

I know I tend to look at the darker side of life.  I think I frequently forget to be thankful.  I get so wrapped up in worrying about what might go wrong, I only look at the negative things.  So, I’m going to try really hard to be more optimistic, and trust that the worst isn’t always going to happen.

It Might Be Time To Call Sam & Dean

Published May 27, 2014 by Malia

Have you ever been showering and then suddenly noticed a giant spider hanging out on the ceiling?  And then the spider proved it could move super fast, and even after you finished your shower, it held you hostage in the shower for much longer than you’re proud of?  And while you were waiting to escape from the shower, you tried to decide if this was a re-enactment of that scene from Arachnophobia or if it would fit better in a Supernatural episode?  And have you found yourself disappointed that your phone was in another room, because you couldn’t even text the boy about how you were stuck in a ridiculous nightmare of one of your three worst irrational fears?

In case you’re wondering, I can honestly answer yes to all the above questions.  I did manage to finally escape the shower, but the spider is still at large.  Which is funny, considering how large the spider was.  And am I embarrassed by all of this?  Yes, I absolutely am.  A freakin’ spider held me hostage in a bathtub!

I think I need a hug.

A Random List of Things I’m Currently Thinking About At 2:30 a.m.

Published May 23, 2014 by Malia

-I really want to see Devil’s Tower.  I know it’s nearly 700 miles away, but I think it would be awesome to just leave after work some Friday night and drive to Wyoming, see Devil’s Tower, and drive back home.  I know it’s crazy, and probably a waste of gas, but it’d be super awesome.

-I’m on a personal mission whenever I watch something on Hulu.  No matter what the ad that is playing, I always mark “No” for the question, “Is this ad relevant to you?”.  So far, it’s not making any difference, but I seriously hope that it’s messing with some Hulu algorithm thing.

-Whenever I house sit, my brain comes up with ridiculous scenarios of things that could happen.  The most common/recurring is that aliens are going to show up.  No abduction or anything.  Just that aliens will suddenly appear.

-Whenever I go on Pinterest, and if I stray onto the DIY & Crafts section I suddenly am filled with the belief that I am crafty.  I’m not.

-Speaking of crafts, I feel the urge to do origami.  Probably a good thing that I’m nowhere near paper right now.

-I kind of want one of those graphic tablets that you use with a computer.  Yeah, apparently I’m on a crafting kick tonight.

-You know what is fantastic about being out of the city and out in the country?  The stars.  There are so many beautiful stars just overwhelming the sky and I adore it.

-You know what’s eerie about being out of the city and out in the country?  The quiet.  It is so amazingly quiet, and when you’re used to the sound of traffic and sirens and trains and such, the quiet can be a little unnerving.

-Who’s got two thumbs and a three day weekend coming up?  This girl!

-I really want to learn archery.  And not just because of The Hunger Games.  It’s a graceful sport.  Plus, I have this weird noise sensitivity issue, so I’m thinking that learning to shoot would be a miserable experience.

-Sometimes I feel like I’m the neediest, clingiest person ever.  It drives me crazy.  It’s not intentional, it just happens.  Which, somehow makes it worse.

-There’s this thing that’s been floating around Facebook lately where people put down what their favorite Bible verse is.  I have many favorite verses, but lately I’ve been loving Philippians 4:8: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

Recovering Drama Queen

Published May 22, 2014 by Malia

Sometimes I think I should have entitled this blog, “Confessions of a Drama Queen in Remission.”  It’s true.  I don’t like acknowledging it, but I’m a drama queen in recovery.  Seriously, there should be a support group.

Me: Hi, my name is Malia, and I’m a drama queen.  It’s been three days since my last episode.

Readers: Hi, Malia.

Yeah, I try not to let that side of me out very often, but it happens.  And, unfortunately, it’s like a snowball, once it gets rolling, everything in my sphere of reality gets super dramatic.  I end up freaking out about everything.

To my horror and embarrassment, the drama queen side of me resurfaced over the last weekend.  It was awful.  I didn’t even realize I was being a drama queen until Tuesday.  I’m absolutely terrified of spiders, and last fall a coworker put a fake one on my computer keyboard not realizing this.  I screamed, and as soon as I realized what it was fake I felt humiliated.  That was six months ago.  Tuesday, it happened again, but this time the fake spider was hidden under my keyboard.  Again, I screamed, and then I ran to the bathroom because I was so angry and humiliated (and I honestly thought I was going to start crying, and didn’t want my co-workers to see that).  I know being scared of spiders is a stupid, irrational fear.  Doesn’t stop me from being scared of them.

Now, there were plenty of other things that happened that led up to the realization that I was being a drama queen.  The fake spider was just the breaking point.  The point where I realized how much of an idiot I was being.  So, now I’m trying to mentally prepare myself to be calm, no matter what (much easier said than done).

Throughout my week of being a drama queen, the boy kindly put up with me.  He never once made me feel worse about it, and he was overall just pretty wonderful.  And now having not seen him since Sunday I miss him a lot.  Being a girl totally sucks sometimes.  It’s not that I’m clingy, I just genuinely miss him.  Thank heavens this isn’t a long distance relationship.

Let’s All Sing The Doom Song!

Published May 17, 2014 by Malia

So, last Sunday was Mother’s Day.  As I get older, I find the day is a cornucopia of mixed emotions for me.  On the one hand, I’ve been very blessed to have some incredible ladies in my life.  Mom, aunts, grandmas, friends.  These ladies deserve to be honored and celebrated.

On the other hand, I want to be a mom, and the older I get, the more I understand the sadness childless women feel on Mother’s Day.    Until I was twenty-two, I firmly did not want kids.  Absolutely not.  Kids terrified me, and I didn’t think I’d stand a chance of being a good mom.  However, something started changing in my heart, and the next four years I found myself in the mode of, “I do want kids, maybe not this instant, but I’m thinking I’d like to be a mom.”  Then, my brain moved to the point of, “We live in a psycho world, it’s an absolutely insane idea to want to bring children into this world, but I don’t care.  I want to be a mama.”  It’s true.  I don’t have the vaguest idea of how to be a mom, but women have been moms since the beginning of time; so there’s a good chance I wouldn’t be the worst mother ever.  And yes, I know you don’t have to actually go through pregnancy and labor to have kids and be a mom, but I find myself praying that one of these days I’ll get to go through that experience as well.

And, while I usually pep talk myself that should a miracle happen and God gives me a little rugrat, there are some days, like today, where I worry I’ll emotionally scar the future rugrat for life.

I’m an internalizer.  When something upsets me, I lock it inside, and let it fester.  It’s a totally “healthy” way to deal with things.  Unfortunately, when things fester, they tend to eventually explode.  Like I did.  Tonight.  The situation isn’t really that important.  Yes, something needed to be done.  Yes, I was just as good a candidate to deal with it as anyone.  However, I handled it wrong.  I fully accept the responsibility for handling it wrong.  I’m still not sure how I should have handled it, but I definitely should not have done so in anger.

Later, after I started to calm down, I got really sad.  Here I am, wanting to be a mom, and when a mothering situation came along I totally screwed up.  I found myself berating myself for asking God to let me have a go at being a mom when I struggle so much to handle even basic confrontation situations.  (As you can tell, I’m clearly emotionally mature.)  In the midst of this inner fight/pity party, I suddenly had the first verse of What a Friend We Have In Jesus pop into my head.

“What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.”

Joseph M. Scriven

I’m not trying to get all preachy here.  In fact, I’m not one hundred percent sure why I feel compelled to share this sad little tale of my lack of emotional maturity.  I do know, though, that the more I thought about those words, the calmer I got.  It also occurred to me that I talk a good line about loving Jesus and believing in God, but I rarely take anything to Him because I don’t want to bother Him with my measly little problems.  After the disaster of today, though, it occurs to me that I really do need His help.  As long as I try to handle things without help, doom is inevitable.

The Dentist Curse

Published May 7, 2014 by Malia

I’ve not written in a couple of weeks because there hasn’t been much to talk about.  The most interesting parts of my life are work and the boy.

I would write about work, but there’s this whole “HIPPA” thing that I don’t want to be in violation of.  So, all the entertaining/irritating/funny/wtf moments that happen there are going to continue to remain confidential.

I could write about the boy, but I’m relatively certain most people do not want to read yet another post talking about how fantastically wonderful he is.  The fact that he puts Gravity Falls on the DVR for me so I can get caught up, and then willingly watches it with me (even though he’s all caught up) kind of makes me melt inside.  And that’s just the tiniest tip of the iceberg of how awesome he is to me.  He actually listens to me, even when I’m rambling on and on about something completely ridiculous.  He was even willing to go as the Dread Pirate Roberts for Free Comic Book Day just so I could go as a princess (I put in a showing as a very brunette Buttercup.  Realized to my horror, after the fact, that I was doing a better Sansa Stark cosplay than a Buttercup cosplay).  I’d be lying if I said I’m not feeling some very deep emotions regarding the boy.  But like I said, I doubt people really want to read another post about this kind, gentle, patient, sweet gentleman.  (In case you think I’m laying it on really thick, I’m barely doing the man justice.  He really is amazing.)

So, apart from those two things, life has been pretty quiet.  However, yesterday something finally fell into my lap that I thought, I should totally write about this.  See, yesterday I learned that I am apparently cursed when it comes to my dentist.  To begin, let me give some background information.

Back in 2008, I had a dental emergency, and found myself visiting a new dentist (the one I had gone to previously was absolutely awful).  The new dentist, we’ll call him Dr. G, was brilliant.  From then until 2010, I saw him anytime I had a teeth emergency, and he was always awesome.  Always worked with me and my budget, and did everything in his power to not make it such a terrifying experience.

In 2010, I had a tooth that needed work, and went to see him.  He came up with a treatment plan, and I needed to save some money before I could have the work done.  When I went back a month later, I learned to my horror, Dr. G had left the practice.  Another dentist ended up completing the work.  He was nice enough, but just not as good of a dentist.

In 2012, my parents needed to go to the dentist, and they actually found out that Dr. G had moved to another practice in town.  They went to see him and all was well.

When I had to have my root canal, back in March, Dr. G was who I went to see.  He did an amazing job (the root canal was over with before I even realized it had been officially started).  I had an appointment 2 weeks ago to have the temporary crown removed and the permanent one placed.  The day of my appointment, I showed up to the clinic, and was informed that Dr. G was out of town and Dr. S would be seeing me.  I was nervous about this.  Dr. S did a quick check and found that Dr. G did his crown prep differently.  Dr. S told me that since I wasn’t having any problem with the temporary, it would probably be better to wait until Dr. G was back in town to have the permanent applied.  He was concerned that since his way of setting the crown was different, I might start having problems with the permanent wanting to come loose.  I was okay with this, and really glad for the honesty.

Yesterday, I got a call to remind me about the appointment I had for today.  The call started with me being told, “Um…Dr. G has left our practice with no warning, so you’ll be seeing Dr. S.”  Fortunately, Dr. S had called Dr. G and found out how best to place the permanent.

So, if you’ve managed to follow all that, you’ll see that I have managed to have the same dentist bail on me twice now.  The boy referred to the situation as a sign.  And I’m afraid I have to acknowledge that he is probably right.  I’m going to just have to let Super Dentist go bye-bye (he really was the most amazing dentist I’ve ever encountered.  Even my parents would agree and they’ve had loads more dental work done than I have).  Fortunately, I really liked Dr. S, so here’s hoping he doesn’t quit the practice before he’s supposed to do my filling.

Otherwise, I’ll have to assume I’m cursed…

Difficult Anniversaries

Published April 18, 2014 by Malia

I realized a few days ago that the last time I attended Good Friday service was in 2011.  My aunt’s church was doing this living Last Supper thing.  It was actually pretty cool.  It was a drama, where the actors did a tableau of DaVinci’s last supper, and each character got to explain which disciple he was, and talk about his role in the story.

As usual, my grandparent’s were in town for Easter, and they went with us to the presentation.  I knew Grampa wasn’t feeling fantastic, but he was determined to go to church that night.  The next day, Saturday, he got progressively worse; and that evening,  my aunt took him to the ER.

I spent the better part of that Easter Sunday with my family in the ICU.  Grampa was in really rough shape, and we really thought that was the end of the road.  It wasn’t, but it was the definite beginning of the end.  He passed away in July of 2012.

The month and a half following that Easter Sunday, I spent a good portion of almost every single day at the hospital and then at the rehab center (after he was released from the hospital).  Looking back, it was a surreal, but incredibly educational experience.

Anyway, like I said, that was the last Good Friday service I went to.  Now, I love Easter.  Being a Christian, the holiday has a lot more meaning for me than just bunnies and chickens and chocolate (however, I never turn down chocolate).  This year I realized that I’ve made zero effort to try to get to Good Friday service since 2011, and I think I’ve finally narrowed down why.  That service in 2011, was pretty much the last time I saw my Grampa even be close to his old self.  Watching him get sicker and constantly waiting for the inevitable phone call was overwhelming.

It’s a weird to think of it as an anniversary, but it is.  And, this year, it’s not one I’m handling terribly well.  I’m really sad.  I miss people in my family being healthy.  I miss my Grampa.  I even miss being a pastor’s kid (although, I’m not sure I’ll ever stop thinking of myself as a pastor’s kid.  I spent 19 years as one, it’s a part of me that I can’t separate from).

Eventually, I’ll go to Good Friday service again, but not this year.

Can Buttercup Be Brunette?

Published April 11, 2014 by Malia

Every five years or so, I get this urge to go blonde.  It’s not a good idea.  In fact, in the realm of ideas of things to do to my hair, going blonde is pretty much at the very bottom of the list.  I’ll be honest, I make a terrible blonde.  I don’t have the complexion for it; plus,  I’m a natural brunette, and I’ve got just enough copper tones in my hair, that the blonde always goes really super fake looking.

Now, in a few weeks, I’m supposed to be doing my first couple’s cosplay, and we’re doing Dread Pirate Roberts and Buttercup.  I’ve got a killer dress, and while it’s not movie accurate, it will work.  I’m starting to get a little nervous though.  See, Buttercup is supposed to be this gorgeous woman, and every depiction I’ve ever encountered about her has her as a blonde.  I’m neither gorgeous nor blonde.  At best I qualify as semi-adorable and fairly eccentric.   So, y’know, there’s that.

I know that the whole point of cosplay is to represent something you love (and I really do love Princess Bride), so I’m not worried about that; my worry is more that I can’t do justice to this character.  I know I shouldn’t be worried or nervous.  Besides,  the important thing is that when it’s all said and done, fun will have been had.

It’s Not Worth More Than Life

Published April 3, 2014 by Malia

I have a lot of things I’m scared of.  Snakes, spiders, snakes, heights, snakes, anything in a scary movie, snakes…well, you get the idea.  However, the two all time scariest moments of my life actually took place while I was driving (and neither involved snakes).  One, of course, is when I went off the road in a blizzard.  Granted, I didn’t get scared until after being rescued, and I realized that I should have died.  The all time scariest moment came in December of 2009.

It was noon on Saturday, December 5th, 2009, I was with my parents, and I was driving on West Center (a main road here in Omaha).  Being the noon hour, traffic was heavy.  We were sitting in a long line of traffic waiting for the light at 120th & W. Center to change.  I remember looking up in my rear view mirror and seeing a car coming up behind me.  I could tell that it wasn’t slowing down, and even though my foot was already on the brake (because we were stopped), I put as much pressure into holding the brake down as I could.  Right before the car slammed into the back of my car, I saw that the driver was just chatting away on her cell phone, completely oblivious to the fact that she was about to cause an accident.  The impact came, our car was pushed up into the car in front of us, and then unexpectedly the car behind us hit us a second time.  It took a moment, but when no more impacts came, it was time to see what had happened.

Turns out, the woman who hit us wasn’t the only one on her phone not paying attention.  There was another woman in the car behind the woman who rear ended us, and she too was on her cell phone.  You read that right, both women were talking on their cell phones not paying a whit of attention to anything.  Not only that, but it ended up being a paramedic who witnessed what happened who called 9-1-1.  I didn’t have a phone at the time, and the gentleman who’s truck I got pushed into didn’t have one either.  Neither of the two women who caused the accident bothered to ever use their phones to call 9-1-1.

Miraculously, no one was killed, or injured; which considering the fact that both women were going at least 45 mph when they hit is pretty amazing.  (Although, the stress of the event triggered a nightmare medical situation with my mom over the next week, but that’s a story for another post.)

Ever since that nightmare day, I’ve been very anti using your cell phone to text or call while driving.  That accident should never have happened.  So, you can imagine the rage I felt yesterday when I got on Facebook, and saw one of my acquaintances had written that when a guy honked and shook his finger at her for texting and driving, she proceeded to flip him off and continue texting at the same time.  And to make it really great, she hash-tagged it “multitasking.”

Cue Seth and Amy, it’s time for “Really?”.  Really?  REALLY??????

Last time I checked driving is not the time to be “multitasking.”  A car is an incredibly dangerous weapon when used irresponsibly.  And yes, I consider texting and driving to be just as irresponsible as talking on the cell phone and driving.  If you don’t care about your own life, show respect and care for other people’s lives.  People in the cars around you are human beings.  Every single driver is someone’s daughter or son.  Every single passenger is someone’s daughter or son.  This isn’t “The Sims” where you can just recreate the character should Death come knocking.  There is no pause button, and the game doesn’t reset just because someone died.   Those other drivers don’t deserve to have their lives taken away or messed up badly because you don’t have the patience to wait until you’ve reached your destination to use your phone.

At the end of the day, life is too valuable to destroy so recklessly and irresponsibly.

Well, Today Happened…

Published April 1, 2014 by Malia

Sometimes, the best that can be said about a day, is that I got through it in one piece.  If today had walls, I’m pretty sure there would be fingernail claw marks on those walls.  And why is this?

Well, today was one week since I had the big root canal.  Woot woot.  I had a pretty bad reaction to the meds I got sent home on, so I’ve been treating the pain with copious amounts of  ibuprofen.  Now, if you know anything about ibuprofen, taking copious amounts of it for long periods of time is not exactly recommended.  So, over the last three days I’ve been working to wean myself off the ibuprofen, and today I decided to try to go cold turkey.  It actually went better than expected.  The pain is pretty much down to a dull ache, which is totally tolerable.  The only really rough moment came when I decided to try to chew gum.  Yeah, that was quite painful.  On the plus side, Dr. Pepper bubblegum actually does taste like Dr. Pepper.  Pain wise the day was okay.  Emotionally, the day stunk.

This always happens the first day I go cold turkey after being on meds.  I so rarely have to take meds, I really don’t handle them well.  Basically, the first day off, my emotions go completely bonkers.  Everything feels very extreme.  I always feel completely worthless (which I’m not).  I always feel like everyone one hates me (which they don’t).  I get really shaky and feel like I’m going to burst into tears any moment.  It’s a nasty cycle.  Fortunately, the first day is always the worst.  Tomorrow will be better.

In other news, today was the first of April, which means the first Camp NaNoWriMo of the year has officially started.  And I have officially written ZERO words.  Go me.  I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to write about, but I’m sure something will come to me eventually.  It’s more about the exercise of writing than anything.   Although, I’m currently feeling like this when I face the blank paper I’m attempting to fill with words…