25 Thoughts on Turning 25

I turn 25 in exactly 1 month from today.

It's weird, this birthday this year.

I was in such a different place last year when my birthday came, that it's hard to believe I'm where I am now.

Hard to believe in a good way, like if someone gave you a million dollars for Christmas. You would barely be able to believe it, but you'd be happy about it, savvy?

Last year before my birthday I did 24 thoughts on turning 24. 

Thinking I would keep with tradition, here are 25 thoughts about turning 25.

Just like last year, but with 1 additional thought. 

YOU'RE WELCOME.

1. This will be the 4th birthday that I've had since I've met Bill, but the 1st where we will be an official couple for it. That's simultaneously weird, and completely normal to me now.

2. 4 days after my last birthday I got engaged to someone I barely knew. Here's hoping that doesn't happen this year.

3. I still hate telling people what I want for my birthday. I've always hated it, but somehow I guess I thought that at some point I'd be less embarrassed by it. I know girls {and guys} that are totally fine emailing out wish lists to their entire families and all their friends around their birthday or Christmas. I get itchy if I am forced to mention even one thing I'd like to receive. 

I feel like it makes me materialistic, greedy or selfish. Or demanding. Even though I don't see other people who ask for specific things that way at all, and I get super irritated when people won't just tell me what they want for their damn birthday {side eye: Bill}. 

4. Every year for the last 3 birthdays I've had, I've gone to a bar and gotten hammered with some friends. This year I would be overjoyed if I could have a really delicious dinner with Bill, and then see a movie or take a day drive somewhere or something. I'm down for drinking, but I think I have arrived at the point of hating bars.

5. I don't feel 25. But then again I didn't feel 24 either. I've always felt older. I wonder if I'll ever arrive at an age that feels appropriate to me.

6. If I buy myself a birthday present, it will either be a new TV or a dining room table. Exciting, I know.

7. Sometimes I wonder if I've become more boring with age. If settling down has made me safer, but also duller. It's kind of a fear of mine.

8. There was a time in my life when 25 seemed really, really grown up. Like I'd have it all figured out by now. I wish I could go back to that younger version of me and tell her  "You'll never know what the fuck you're doing"

9. I've never ever wanted a surprise party. Something about them gives me anxiety.

10. An absolutely ideal {and completely unrealistic} birthday weekend, would be a surprise trip to Vegas or Sedona with Bill. In a perfect world it'd be a road trip, because I love road trips, but it's hard enough to get Bill to sit in a car whilst you drive across town. I'm pretty sure he bought a plane so that he'd never have to drive across state lines again. If I couldn't have that, waking up to banana pancakes and good coffee would be a very close 2nd. 

11. I still don't know where I stand on the idea of legal, traditional marriage. I know that a forever kind of commitment to another person would be fine with me, but something about the whole legal marriage thing just throws me off. I don't really know why. Isn't promising to love another person forever the same thing whether you sign a marriage license or not? Why am I OK with the commitment but scared of a piece of paper?

12. I still feel a lot of guilt over the way I handled everything around my last birthday. How openly I flaunted my new {and ridiculous} rebound relationship, without simultaneously having the balls to admit any of it to Bill. It's hard for me to read my birthday post from last year without cringing at myself. I was trying so hard to be OK. I could not have looked more broken.

13. When I was little, basically up until my 10th or 11th birthday, my favorite cake and ice cream combo was strawberry cake and rainbow sherbet.  Now I'm a pizookie kind of girl.

14. I've started checking for grey hairs this year. Yep. 

15. Nice try mirror, but, clearly those are my mom's boobs you're showing me.

16. If you do want some ideas of what I'd like for my birthday, look here. No pressure or anything.

17. It's harder than I thought to come up with 25 things about being 25. 

18. Yes, there is a china hutch on my "wish list" board on Pinterest. I told you, I've become boring.

19. This time last year I was a midwifery apprentice. Now I'm a department coordinator for a real estate developer. Talk about polar opposites.

20. After we got back together, Bill gave me a necklace for my birthday last year that I have taken off a total of 1 time since he put it on me that night. 

21. For the first time in my life, I hope nothing changes between now and my next birthday. I am just exactly where I want to be.

22. There is no 22

23. Birthdays are my favorite holidays. I love my friends birthdays, and my kids'. I like trying to make them as special as possible. There's just something very sweet about celebrating and making a big deal out of the day a person was born.

24. I love cheesecake. Just saying.

25. Last year I wondered what it would be like looking back on that birthday, this year. I think I've done a lot of that recently. So much has changed. And I think all for the better. That's the first time I've ever been able to really say that. 

All I want is for things to keep getting better. To keep the people I have now, and maybe add a few more to love over the next year. But by my next birthday, I want to be able to say that I'm still where I always wanted to be. The ground didn't fall out beneath my feet, there were no major losses or forced life changes. Everything has just flowed forward the way life should.

A girl can dream.

Worries, Fears and Broken Promises: The one where I go back on my word about not being depressing anymore

This is going to be an honest post. 

This is going to be one that returns to my recent habit of posting depressing shit, even though I told you I was making it up to you earlier today.

I'm going back on my word.

Partly because I feel like if I don't say this all in one form or another my head will explode, or my life will implode in on itself, and partly because this blog started out as a place where I could say anything.

And I try to keep it that way.

I'm stressed lately.

Maybe even becoming a little bit depressed.

It's sneaking in, quietly and carefully so as that at first I didn't even notice it.

But then it knocked a dish over and broke it and I'm painfully aware of it's presence now.

I'm beginning to worry about things I can't do anything about.

That's always a sign that I'm struggling inside.

I'm having anxiety attacks almost every day again.

That's a sign too.

I have very little interest in writing, if any at all to be honest with you. I had to almost force myself to write this post.

I don't feel like talking very much by the end of the day.

What I do feel like doing is sitting in my room as it grows dark in the evening and "forgetting" to turn the light on, until I'm staring at stupid shit on the internet in almost complete darkness.

I do feel like eating terrible foods.

I do feel like shopping. 

And I do feel like crying.

And I do feel like talking about cancer. All. the. freaking. time.

It's sickening.

But all of this heaviness in my chest is weighing down my mind.

Like I said, I'm starting to worry about stupid things.

I do my budget, and then re-do it and re-do it over and over to make sure my paycheck will last until the next one comes {even though I know it will} because out of nowhere, I'm worried about money.

I cringe every time my boss asks me to come to his office at work, or sounds grouchy on the phone because I've suddenly convinced myself {without any evidence or probably cause} that I'm about to get fired.

I'm worried about my poor little van because it has 130k miles on it and today at a stop light, the idle sounded rough and tired and I just knew it was going to die on me any second, and I really {like really} need that van to last me at least through the end of the year without requiring any major repairs, and all these awful fears and senseless worries just swirl around above me, until I'm having a crying panic attack in the stairwell at work, downing Rescue Remedy like it's water. 

I feel heavy.

I feel tired.

I feel scared.

I feel worried.

I feel like I'm standing on the edge of some terrible impending doom and I am powerless to stop it.

I feel very, very mortal.

And worst of all, I feel guilty.

I've been fighting with my father. Who has cancer. I mean really, what kind of hateful, awful person fights with someone who has cancer? What kind of terrible daughter gets angry at their dad who just found out he's sick, for ANYTHING? And what kind of miserable excuse for a daughter misses her dad's oncology appointment because she figured he was too angry with her to want her there? Only to get a text after it's over from him that says

"Wanna know what my oncologist said? He said where's your daughter."

Knife, meet heart.

I keep thinking "I should call someone...plan a girls night...it'd be good to get out" and then in the same 10 minutes I think "No...crowds would bother me right now...and it's never cool to be the girl at the bar who keeps talking about cancer" and that's all that flows {and I mean FLOWS} out of my mouth when I get face to face with anyone these days.

I think "Maybe a vacation would make me feel better. A weekend trip somewhere" and then I think "And as soon as you get back from spending all that money, the van will die, you won't have cash to fix it, you won't be able to get to work, you'll lose your job and end up living in a minivan that doesn't even run"

Welcome to my hell.

I'm not sure what to do.

I want to be shaken....snapped out of this weird kind of nightmare filled coma somehow. 

I want something to be excited about, and less to worry about...or at least some sign that the things I'm worried about would be manageable if they did happen...or enough self control to stop worrying about them.

Really, I'd take any of those things.

I just want something to feel excited about.

The Friday Diary: Where I Make It Up To You

 Hellooooo Friday.

I would like to take a moment and apologize to the imaginary people that I imagine read this blog, for my sporadic and probably very depressing posting lately.

I've been a bad blog friend. 

BUT LOOK! I make it up to you at the last minute by writing a Friday diary.

Can we be friends again?

I sure hope so.

...

Overheard this week:

Jackson: I am too full to finish my dinner. Can I have ice cream now?

Me: If you're too full to finish your food, how do you have room for ice cream in your tummy?

Jackson: I have a different tummy just for ice cream and there's room in there because you haven't given me any ice cream.

Touche.

...

Gave in this week:

On Twitter.

Yes, I did it.

{I can literally hear Bill laughing at me right now}

I know, I was ashamed of me too at first.

But it's not so bad! It's just scary and confusing and very lonely at first...Plus I may have openly confessed to stalking a fellow blogger on my Twitter feed for all the world to see. 

I wonder if I can update my blog from prison.

...

Relaxed:

On Tuesday instead of going out to eat on my lunch break, I ran an errand, grabbed some Starbucks and hit the library. 

I pillaged their section where they sell used books for obscenely cheap, and grabbed 4 books for $5. Not a bad lunch hour if you ask me.

...

Pintastrophy:

I tried making these potato things that I found on Pinterest.

The picture made them look so delicious, and the instructions were easy enough.

As you can see, mine didn't turn out quite the same.

They were tasty and all, but they never really got crispy except around the very outer edge, and no matter long I cooked them they never got really cooked down at the bottom where they were attached to the body of the potato.

Oh well. It was a nice idea and I wasn't going to use those potatoes for anything anyway.

...

Gifted:

When Bill came back {finally} from being out town {for like a million years} he was sweet enough to bring me this little guy, who lives on my desk now.

I named him Fergus. He's kind of a naughty bastard.

...

Made:

Lainie got her craft on and made my dad {several} very pretty birthday cards with my scrapbook paper while I was cleaning and not paying attention. 

I hope he appreciates all 20 of them.

Note to self: buy more glitter.

...

Reminisced:

All this cancer business has made me very aware of the past, and it's been heavily on my mind lately. So on 4th of July before we got down to some hardcore celebrating, I took Jack to the little park in the neighborhood I grew up in where I played when I was younger. It was overcast and cool, and the perfect day to sit on a bench and remember.

P.S. Jackson needs to stop growing up. Like now.

Laughed:

And now for a laugh, something I was introduced to by Motley Mama, and have not been able to stop reading since:

Honest Toddler on Twitter.

{for those of you who are as new to twitter as I am, start at the bottom and read up. I learned that today. You're welcome.}

Happy Friday!

Letters to my father

I came to the library in Scottsdale today on my lunch break, instead of going out to eat with my co-workers.

The same library where you used to take me when I was 12. I loved it then because it was huge, and beautiful. With the big sparkling gray castle in the kids section, complete with a tower and turret for private reading, and the grounds around it were so so green and luscious it was like a small oasis in the middle of the desert we actually live in. Big, gushing fountains and thick shady trees cooling down the silky soft grass...it was my 12 year old paradise.

I like it here now because it's air conditioned, and quiet, and when I bring the kids I have an excuse to ask them to whisper. We're in a library after all. And there are used books we can buy for 50 cents, and the castle is still there. And when it's really hot and nobody is looking, I let the kids run through the fountains. Just like you did for me when I was little.

I like coming here alone now too, because the bathrooms are big and there are so many stalls. Bathroom stalls are a good place for grieving. You can close the door and stay as long as you like. No one rushes you in the bathroom, especially when there are 20 other stalls for them to choose from.

I'm just not sure what it is that I'm grieving. 

You aren't dead yet.

I guess that's what I'm grieving that right there: the yet in that sentence.

Before this there was never a yet on the end of sentences about you dying. 

Up until all of this, I think I believed somewhere in the back of my mind or maybe the bottom of my heart, that you would live forever. 

Not in the unrealistic "death doesn't exist" way, {I've believed death was real ever since my cat Bob died when I was 5 and you made me look at his body and touch his tail so I would understand what death meant} but more in the sense that I never reconciled the idea of losing you someday. 

Of watching you die.

So now I hide in bathrooms among stainless steel and white tile, and try to practice saying it out loud without my voice breaking.

I try make myself say the word cancer without tears filling my eyes.

I try to accept that you are in fact mortal, without the very breath leaving my chest.

So far I haven't made much progress.

Monday Momisms: Having More and Having None

I'm not sure why this particular topic sprang to mind today.

The idea of some women not wanting more kids.

The question that seems to linger for so many people about whether or not some women can truly not want any kids, and not because they're just scared of commitment or of being shitty parents, but just because kids aren't there thing and they don't want any.

I know a lot of people who seem to be convinced that all women want a bun in their oven. That we all, deep down have this unspoken desire-nay, need, to be mothers, and the only reason a woman might choose not to become one is because, like I mentioned before, she's either selfish, or afraid of something.

I disagree with this.

I've always disagreed with it, but only recently have I become personally offended on behalf of all those no-baby-wantin ladies out there. 

Not because I don't want kids {clearly I wanted children} but because I don't want any more children. See, even after producing two beautiful, 100 percent healthy, mostly well behaved children, every time I get asked if I'm going to have more, I cringe. 

Because I know what's coming.

If the women over the age of 25 is asking that question at all, it seems to most likely be because she's hoping the answer will be yes, and then we can swoon over nursery plans and fond memories of vaginal tearing. When I say "Nope, I think I'm done" I'm always met with one of two responses:

1. "Oh are you suuurrrreee? Your babies are so beautiful!!!!" While I appreciate the compliment, the sad hopefulness in their eyes makes me feel like I owe them something. Like my ability to produce attractive off spring makes me somehow indebted to the general population, and I am now single handedly {single uterusedly?} responsible for providing planet Earth with the next Ryan Goseling. 

This is too much pressure.

2. "Oh you'll have more. You're young, just wait. Your clock hasn't started ticking yet. You'll want more" This reaction is usually handed out by older women, who I suspect are beginning to suffer the wrath of empty nesting, and are now publicly and proudly projecting on me, their repressed wish to be able to have just one more baby. To do it one more time.

They think that because I'm young I must not know what a precious gift my endlessly fruitful uterus is, and once old age begins to set in I will panic and feel the need to procreate as much as possible before "my time" is up.

I always want to say to them "trust me, I know what a gift it was for me to be able to have not just one healthy child, but two. I know how many women can't, and believe me, that sounds terrible to want a baby and not be able to have one. But it sounds just as terrible for me to find out I'm having a baby when I know I don't want one. I promise you, this has nothing to do with my age. I know I don't want more kids because I've done it. Twice. And I have no desire or biological need to do it a third time. I'm satisfied."

But I'm always scared if I start down that road I'll snap completely and ask them if they remember what pooping for the first time after they gave birth was like, and then see if they still think I'll want more some day.

I'm pretty sure I'm nonsensically {and graphically} rambling now, so I'll get to the point: I definitely think it's possible for a woman to just not want kids. And I don't think that's selfish. I think it's bad ass for a person to know so clearly and with so much certainty what they want, and follow through with it. It's much worse to know deep down you don't want a baby, but to have one anyway because it's the socially normal thing to do.

I definitely think it's possible to be done having kids after just one, or to not be done after 9 babies.

I think it all depends on how you see your life mapping out.

Does my uterus ache a little when I smell a newborn baby's head? Absolutely. 

Do I realize that I could potentially, someday in the very distant future be a step mother to somebody else's kids, effectively having more kids for lack of a better term? Yes.

But and that's all ok with me.

I still know at the end of the day, that I am done getting pregnant, growing a tiny human, and screaming it the entire way out of my body in front of a room full of overly curious people.

And there's nothing wrong with that, damn it.

Our Weekend: Peanut Butter Cookie TIme!

The kids, sitting at separate tables at Subway, lest they kill each other or spill something on my food, me rocking the au naturale summer time hair in the middle of a 114 degree day, and then some of the very BEST Reese's Peanut Butter cookies that Lainie and I made. 

Want the recipe?

Sure thing:

2 cups peanut butter

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 cap full of vanilla extract {I couldn't find my measuring spoons}

Mix it up,  drop rounded spoonfuls onto a Pam sprayed cookie sheet, dip a wet fork in sugar and do the criss cross thing on top of it, but gently because these flatten out a decent amount.

Break a Reese's Peanut Butter cup into quarters and shove the pieces into the cookies.

Bake at 350 for 8 minutes. 

Easy Peezy Lemon Squeezy!

At least that's what Lainie says :)

Happy Sunday!

The Friday Diary: Goodbye June

So so, it's that time again. 

It's the end of yet another month in 2012. 

Can you believe it?!

I hate to sound cliche, but really, this year is flying.

I think I say that every year, and I mean it even more every year.

I guess that tells you something about getting older.

Anyway, let's wrap it up.

June feels like it went by so fast that I hardly remember any of it.

I guess that's a big part of why I love blogging: it's a time capsule of our lives. At any point I can look back as far as this blog goes and see where we were a year ago, or two years ago, and so on.

This month I:

Fell in love with Grey's Anatomy, lost a tragic amount of sleep watching it on Netflix, and made it my life's dream to find a best friend like Cristina Yang. I don't need to find a boyfriend like McDreamy. I already have one.

+

For the first time in 4 years, I made something that was neither food nor a baby. It was fun.

+

And I told you all about the Big C. I guess in regards to that, I owe you an update. It feels a little wrong and overly casual to say this in a post as silly and unimportant as the Friday diary {but how important are any of these posts, really?} but here it is: My dad's cancer spread more than they initially thought after surgery. The tests all came back showing that it has spread to his nearby lymph nodes, and he now has stage 3B Colon Cancer. 

He has to start Chemo immediately.

I promise at some point I'll stop being the Debbie Downer in the room who's always talking about people dying.

At some point.

Now, to lighten the mood, a couple pictures from my phone because I'm too lazy to take any nice ones.

Jackson watching a dust storm roll in.

The kids playing "camp out" in the hall by the front door. Don't ask me why.

And yes I do have boxes of shit I still haven't unpacked in my house, DON'T JUDGE.

Happy Friday.