24 hours - a day in the life

let's type up the last 24 hours of my life so i can get my mind off of the second most traumatic experience of my life.  in case you'd forgotten... the gold medal for traumatic experiences still goes to this one that happened last summer.

last night at 11:30 i prayed and read my scriptures and instead of just going to sleep, i got on the internet instead.
12:30 am still on the internet and it hit me like a ton of bricks "where on earth did this massive headache come from?!" and then two minutes later i realized this was definitely a migraine.  and that i suddenly felt intensely sick to my stomach.  turned off the computer and eventually fell asleep.
4:00am on the dot, woke up with my stomach clenching painfully.  made my way to the bathroom and threw up times five.  felt so much better but still not great at all.  brushed my teeth and went back to bed.
5:00am on the dot woke up again with the urgent need to throw up and literally ran to the bathroom (good thing i'd left the light on from the previous time!) and threw up a few more times.  i normally don't really mind throwing up... i'm not one of those people that hates it.  but this time i was hating it.  it hurt my pregnant belly and my oh my how it burned my throat.  brushed my teeth and rinsed out my mouth a million times and went back to bed.
7:30am felt like i could probably throw up but went back to bed instead.
8:00 woke up with a still really bad headache and not feeling great but not feeling like i'm going to die either.  while i was showering i was wondering if i maybe had just eaten something that didn't sit right.  then as my head was still in intense pain and i kept getting out of breath and lightheaded like crazy and was still dealing with an empty queasy stomach, i realized that the throwing up must have been because of the migraines.  it's been forever since i threw up from having a migraine.  like at least two years i'm guessing.
10:20 tiptoed up to baby girl's room and wished i had my camera to take a picture of her sweetly sleeping self.  no time to get it so i just woke her up instead.  it took her a minute or two... she must have been super tired.  diaper and clothes and a few bites of oatmeal before we were out the door.
10:30 got to jodi's to drop off baby girl.  panicked because she wasn't there.
10:40 jodi got there.  thank goodness!
11:00 got to my in laws.
11:15 to 12:30 ate lunch with elder perry and my in laws.  that man loves his ipad.  also, he's even taller in person.
1:00 made it to jodi's
2:00 arrived home and ate lunch
2:30 baby down for nap
5:00 i woke up from my nap.  first one i've taken in a while.
6:30 went upstairs to get baby girl up.  she was already awake but still just playing happily in her crib.
7:00 got to the quilt place... won a prize!  somehow i knew they would pick my raffle number.  sixth sense?
7:30 left quilt place and went to old navy and ross.  got two pairs of infant shoes for fifty cents each that were originally $10.  who pays that much for old navy baby shoes?!  nothing was on sale in the maternity section this time.  ross had some stuff though so i left there $50 lighter.  honey is going to have to start staying in town because i seem to shop and spend more money while he's away...
10:15pm got home and ate dinner
10:45 put baby girl to bed
11:00 walked into my bedroom to find a gigantic spider on the floor by my bed.  immediately broke into a full body sweat.  i'd just been thinking how wonderful it's been that i haven't seen a spider in like two months and here's a huge one the first night my christopher is out of town.  it wasn't as big as the enormous wolf spider from that one time last summer but it was huge and gangly and tall.  so i called my friend across the street (they stay awake late so i knew they wouldn't be asleep) and told her to send her husband over.  the spider crawled under the bed in the two minutes before he got here but with the help of a flashlight, a broom, and a roll of paper towels... we (he) got that sucker taken care of.  i'm still so jumpy but there were a few major tender mercies about this experience, namely that i happened to be fully clothed when this happened.  what would i have done if i was in my g's when i saw this and couldn't get past the spider to get clothes on before i called someone over?!  anyways... now i'm going to go back to being jumpy about seeing spiders and i hate that.  i need therapy.
11:45 and i still have this awesome headache that will not let up.  ugh... crossing my fingers for some restful sleep and some not too scary dreams.  is it tuesday night yet?!

come on baby girl... time to go next door to ross.

and just when i thought she might be following me... i looked back to find her mounting this dog.

but we still left happy.  thank you old navy for your complimentary balloon and bouncy ball.

just follow the directions

we'll call this "a lesson in cooking: what not to do" or something like that.

wednesday night i decided to try out a new salmon recipe from my favorite cookbook because i had a massive hunk of salmon in our freezer from honey's dad from a fishing trip he went on.  soo i pulled out my cookbook, looked up salmon, and found a delicious, simple, and quick recipe and like with pretty much every recipe out of that book, i already had all of the ingredients on hand.  i was feelin' good.

well, the plan was for honey to watch baby girl outside while i got dinner together.  i thought this would be easier than the norm which is her clinging to my legs crying while i try to fumble through a recipe that takes me ten times longer than it's supposed to because i'm so add.  well, honey kept getting phone calls and was arranging a craigslist pickup for a bedroom set we wanted and well... baby girl was frustrated and neglected.  the add kicked in.  dinner was moving along painfully slow and when i got to this mixture... i knew something had to be wrong.

because that sure doesn't look like something that happens on purpose.  i reread the instructions.  here's what i was supposed to have done: 1. sprinkle salt and pepper over salmon. 2. mix melted butter, honey, and mustard, and brush over salmon.  3. mix crushed pecans, parsley, and breadcrumbs and spoon across salmon.

here's what i did: mix all ingredients together into thick, nasty, vomit-looking paste (see above picture), while neglected, angry toddler screams at you for not taking her outside to play with the neighbor girl (see below picture).

still, it turned out pretty close to the picture and it tasted fabulous.  that's what i call fool proof.

i'll take whatever success i can get when my baby looks like this...

so this is the before bake picture and sadly, i forgot to take a picture of it fresh out of the oven, but i swear it looked nice and pretty.

and i had to take a picture of this, because as i said before, baby girl is turning back into her normal self and taking an interest in toys again!  YEAY!

 

toes.  finally got a picture after at least ten attempts.

and really, i'm not sure either why i keep attempting this self portrait mother daughter thing.

 

i keep telling myself that maybe someday i'll need proof that i did more than follow my baby around with a camera.  y'know... that i held her every once in a while.

moral of the story: follow cooking instructions and hold your child.

ps- i just found a spider while i was writing this post.  neither of us have moved and i'm just praying it will stay perfectly still until honey can come home to kill it for me.  and i just texted my neighbor to ask if her daughter would kill a spider for me.  for a small fee of course.  i'm beginning to rethink that whole "loving this warm weather" thing.

spider spider go away come again never ever ever ever ever ever ever.

in all seriousness though, how old do you think baby has to be before she can kill spiders for me?  maybe by next summer?  that's definitely something a three year old should be capable of, right?  parents of older children... get back to me on that one.  asap.

pray for me

i'm speaking in church.

the most terrifying experience of my life

let me tell you about what happened on monday.  i wasn't going to post this but when i told my mother the story she told me it needed to be recorded and then my shameless brother walter heard it through the grapevine and made mention of it on my facebook wall so i figured all was lost anyways.  i guess i really don't care who knows, as long as it's not my honey.  but he doesn't read this, so no worries there.

monday morning, baby and i went to our neighborhood pool with new friend kirstyn and her daughter.  when we got home, i put baby on the floor to play and then went to roll the pack n play over to block off the stairs.  hiding right underneath it was the most gigantic spider i have ever seen outside of a zoo!  i about died!  i had a major panic attack.  i'm actually getting the sweats right now just thinking about it.  i don't like bugs or spiders or snakes of any sort under any condition but spiders are the worst and having something surprise me in my own home like that is more than i can bear.  i felt violated and terrified.

if my honey was home i would have just had him dispose of it, as was clearly discussed in our prenuptial agreement.  you think i'm kidding?  i am not.  nothing is written but it was a verbal agreement and i remember it vividly as if it was last night.  i told my dear christopher that if we were going to be married (this conversation actually took place before we were engaged... because some things you just need to agree upon before furthering your relationship), one of the things i required of my future husband was that he take care of any bug, insect, spider, creature, dead or alive, and dispose of it properly (that means, flushing it down the toilet.  it can not remain within the walls of our home) without any hesitation or complaining.  for the past five years he has done a phenomenal job in this regard and it has never been a real problem... until this past year.  since i'm home during the day when he's gone, i've had to do some solo pest control out of sheer necessity and my duty as a mother to protect my young from [eating] these leggy pests.

well, i knew i couldn't take care of it myself but i did entertain the idea for a bit.  there was no way the situation would wait until my hero of a husband got home from work.  i brainstormed.  i called my honey at work and explained the problem.  i wish i could have recorded that phone call.  he was nice although audibly annoyed that i called him at work to tell him i found a spider.  honestly, i'm not sure what i was expecting.  it's not like he could kill it through the phone.  and he wasn't going to come home on his lunch break to take care of it for me.  he told me to put a trash can over it.  i told him it had moved against the wall.  he told me bye.  i called kirstyn.  as if she would want to reload her kid in a carseat to drive back to my house to kill a spider.  i didn't care.  that's what friends are for.  but she didn't even answer.  i was paralyzed with fear.  so i went to the garage and put on his pair of tennis shoes.  i walked back in the kitchen and looked more than twenty feet away to wear the spider was still hanging out.  i went back to the garage and got a trashcan.  i took it back to the spot twenty feet away.  there was just no way.  i went back to the garage and took the shoes off.

i put on my flip flops and marched to my next door neighbor's house, knocked on the door, and prayed someone would be home and that they would have no fear of spiders.  this family is a wonderful family that is in our ward.  the husband used to be bishop but now he's in the stake presidency.  he travels a lot for work and is rarely home.  the wife doesn't seem like the spider loving type and neither do their two daughters.  no one was answering.  i prayed for a miracle and started to walk away.

then it happened!  the husband answered the door!  i have never been so relieved in my life!!!  i told him i had two favors.  "#1, i need you to come kill a spider for me" [he laughs] "you can laugh all you want, i don't care, but i neeeed you to kill that spider." [he says okay and we start to walk over to my house] "and #2, you have to promise not to tell chris.  he would be so ashamed and embarassed."  so we walked over,  the spider had moved a bit but wasn't hard to find.  he admitted that he was surprised it was a very good sized spider and asked for a paper towel.  i gave him a whole role.  he went over and cleaned it up like it was a smudge on a mirror.  i thanked him with all my heart and told him i required that spiders be flushed.  but we both decided it would not be wise to flush such a giant wad of paper towels.

so being the gentleman that he is, he carried that wad of paper towels, complete with dead spider and all, back to his house, while he asked me how i developed such a terrible fear of spiders.  good question because i used to play with them when i was in elementary school and by the time i was in fifth grade, i couldn't even briefly look at a picture of ants, much less a spider or a snake or roach.  yuck roaches.  so throughout the whole experienced i thanked him as if he had just risked his life to save my first born from a burning building.  i honestly think this was more impressive because really, i can deal with flames.  i wish i could repay him.  i told him i'm going to do his yard work and weeding and that i'm excessively grateful, but that there's a good chance this won't be the last time i call for a favor of this nature.

i have since asked serveral people if i can call them should i ever experience a similar situation.  i also went to walmart last night and bought the biggest size of spider spray you've ever seen.  it comes with a money back guarantee and says it's supposed to work for 9 months.  i had asked my dear honey if we could call the exterminator and he said no.  so this is the best i've got.  because it's been a few days and i'm still jumpy and cautious and breaking out in sweats every time i see a chocolate chip on the floor.  i've also decided i need to get pregnant ASAP with a boy so that i can raise him to do this sort of stuff for me.  and then i will home school him and keep him by my side until he goes to college.  and by that point we'll be so filthy rich i'll have a whole staff of help including chefs and maids and chauffeurs and bug killers that will continually monitor my home and make sure anything with less than two legs or more than four is not allowed.  i thought about just moving to an apartment in the city but that plan was less appealing for me.  i'll let you know how things go with that.

needless to say, it's been a little bit tense around here.