Thursday, November 13, 2014

New Location: DUAL BLOGGING!

  Hey ya'll....

So, as you can tell this little blog has been neglected and there is a big reason why....

The hubs and I decided to start a new creative project...together.  So, to hear more from me and the hubs crazy adventures, be sure to check us out here.

belchering.blogspot.com

Sunday, September 14, 2014

pregnancy paranoia

Basically every single day I may or may not be pregnant.

After 2+ years of marriage I have sort of finally come to terms with that possibility.  For basically the entire first year of my marriage, if I was even 10 minutes late for my period I was doing a pregnancy test.  It sounds hyperbolic, but I'm not even joking.  I was constantly thinking "I know I'm on birth control, but what if I'm pregnant?!?!?!"  We were living in my parent's basement, we both had really low paying jobs, I was on my parent's really sucky insurance, we didn't have savings or retirement accounts set up, and everything else that makes you think "Hmm...maybe a baby is a bad idea right now."

Now I'm getting established in my career, JD has steady employment, we're getting ready to get back to school, we're in our own space.  But for the longest time I was still basically in a constant state of panic regarding the occupancy of my womb.  I mean, yeah we have a fairly good established life and we are very blessed to have the lifestyle we live.  But we're not done with school, we don't own a house, we don't have tons of savings (thought we do have some) and it just still seemed problematic to start a family.

However, about seven months ago I finally got to point where I sort of just felt "meh" about my pregnancy status.  No, we're not actively trying and no, it's not in our plan right now.  But if I was pregnant "whatever" we'd deal with it and be happy.  We had the resources and family around us to make whatever we needed to work.

Then we thought I was having a miscarriage on a baby that we didn't even know we had.  One Sunday afternoon I was just in horrendous pain.  We were still living in Wyoming with my parents and we were getting ready for church.  I figured it was something I ate and went to church.  All through relief society I was in such pain, then other symptoms started setting in.  JD and I left church early and I laid in bed for awhile.  JD gave me a blessing and tended to my every need.  Eventually I started thinking, "Am I having a miscarriage?"  I said something to JD about that possibility and he suggested we go to the ER just to check everything out.  Fortunately, I was not having a miscarriage my hormones were just freaking out for whatever reason.  The doctor at the ER got me on a medication to sort of "reset" my hormones and everything was fine.  But the emotions we experienced going through that process were incredible.  Even though we lost what wasn't even there.
My heart goes out to so many women, including several of my dear friends and angel mother, who have experienced the grief and anguish that goes along with miscarriage and stillbirth.  I cannot even begin to imagine the emotions that go along with such a personal, difficult experience.  Please say a prayer for the women who have had to/are currently going through such a difficult trial.

So, now whatever will be will be.  When the time is right, whether we like it or not, we'll be ready.  P.S. I'm not pregnant (at least that I know of) so don't get any ideas.

For now, we'll just continue to play with our cute family member's babies and day dream about how darling our little ones will be.

Me with Lucy and JD with Sam
Circa June 2014

Thursday, September 11, 2014

thousands of words

Summer has come and gone and we had a blast all summer long with family and friends.  Rather than try to write about it all, here's a photo run down.  If Summer was this eventful, I can't wait to see what adventures will await us in fall.











Tuesday, July 15, 2014

content : one little word update

After moving and getting a new job and the fun and craziness that come with that, I've been thinking a lot about my "one little word" for the year of 2014.  You may remember this post from January, my word for the year was "content".  However, through the changes we have made in our lives this year my definition of content has drastically changed.

At that point in my life (January 2014) I was in a serious funk.  My husband was starting to notice it as well and trying to figure out how to best help me with it. I just wasn't happy, and feelings of that unhappiness started in 2013.  So, I got a new job.  I was happy for a short time but it just wasn't lasting...The feelings of unhappiness just kept rolling in and I didn't know what to do.  I was frustrated and felt stuck.  I thought maybe I was wanting to have a baby, maybe I wanted to just quit my job and be at home, maybe I wanted to just run away from all responsibilities and join a hippie commune in the forest.

Obviously, none of those proposed "ideas" were the answer to my problem.  I prayed day in and day out to learn to be "happy in my circumstances" and "content where I was."  I felt so guilty because I was trying to hard to just force myself to be happy in an environment where I just...wasn't.

One particularly difficult day in January, JD toyed with the idea of moving.  He knew of some openings with his company in Salt Lake, thought maybe I may be interested.  I brushed off the idea at that point and said that moving was just totally not within the realm of possibility.  However, that little seedingly of thought kept creeping back into the forefront of my mind.  What if we moved?  What if I started a different job?  How would I find a job?  Where would we live?  Would I even like living in a city?  I've never lived in a real city!  How would we do it? 

In about February we continued to pray about whether or not a move was the best things for us to do.  In the middle of February it was just glaringly obvious that our time in Kemmerer needed to end.  So, we made the decision to quietly being planning our move to SLC. JD started putting in his paperwork for a transfer into SLC, which we figured would be ready around June.  So, I started applying to a few jobs thinking within a few months something would probably pop up.

Two days after applying for a trucking company based in Salt Lake City, they wanted me to come down for an interview the next morning.  The interviewer and I really hit it off, I didn't even think there way any way I had the job when I left because I have never felt so relaxed after a job interview.  I went to the hair salon after the interview to gush over our moving plans and get pampered to relax after such a stressful endeavor.  While my color was processing, I got a call from my interviewer wanting to know what starting salary would be acceptable to me because they were offering me the position.  They wanted me to start in 1 week.

So, the move went much quicker than planned.  Miraculously, JD was able to transfer down the week after I was down here full time.  My aunt was kind enough to let us stay in her spare room until our apartment was ready.  We still have a ton of crap I should really throw away boxes of our stuff in my parent's basement.  We basically packed up an air mattress and some essentials and jumped in the car headed for Utah.

A little more about being content: I've slowly come to realize, being content in your life DOES NOT mean making yourself unhappy.  Yes, being content can lend itself to mean being happy regardless of what is happening in your life.  However, contentedness should not be an explanation for disliking your life.  If there are legitimate changes you can make in your life to make yourself more happy, do it.  Don't ever put off your happiness for the convenience of others.

So, there are some of my little thoughts regarding being content.  Someday I'm gonna revamp this blog design again, but for now I'll just go crawl into bed and wake up tomorrow another day as a cubicle worker.

And I'll be happy about every second of it.






Monday, July 7, 2014

it gets better: marriage edition

On June 20th, we attended a lovely reception for JD's cousin who recently got hitched.  Dani, the bride, looked radiant and lovely.  Brett, the groom was clearly so filled with love.  Both them and their families were blissful and joyful, so happy to see the start of a brand new family unit.  It was a beautiful evening with lovely flowers, cake and loved ones.  It also turned out to be a lovely reminder, considering our wedding anniversary would be the next day, of how happy I am....to not be newlyweds anymore.

Yes, the blissful newlywed stage seems to be great to the outsider looking in.  They're happy to be alive, happy to be united with the one you love for eternity, also you're riding the high of having an entire party devoted just to you and your love.  The bride and groom look so joyful you just must imagine they never speak ill to each other, constantly serenading each other with their loving words.  Perfection, is the one word that most use to describe those in such a blissful stage.

I vividly remember sitting in the Salt Lake City LDS Temple, clinging to my soon-to-be hubby's hand with tears in my eyes thinking "I will never love him as much as I love him right now."  Which, to be honest was a bunch of bologna.  Because I can tell you with absolute certainty that I love my cute hubby SO MUCH MORE than I ever did on our wedding day.

Sure, there are things that get worse.  Household chores get bothersome, sometimes arguments ensue over nothing in particular, sometimes you just feel the need to get your frustrations out and your spouse is the only one there.  It can be really difficult, I'd never in my life say that spending your eternity with another imperfect person and trying to figure out how to make your imperfections work together is an easy task. 


Each day that we argue over what game to play, each day that we support each other in making big decisions, each day we frustratedly give up on a Coca-Cola puzzle, each day that we argue until we're blue in the face about directions to a new place, I love him more and more.  Because we can do hard things!  You never know how much you love someone until they start doing chores without you asking them.  You never know how much you love someone until they are having to care for you when you can't care for yourself.  You never know how much you love someone until you have done hard things together.

We can do hard things, and I'm so grateful we made it through the newlywed phase so we can really know what love is like.  Congrats to all of the lovely, gorgeous, amazing new brides and grooms out there.  But I hope you know, it gets SO much better.


Us on our wedding day June 21, 2012 vs. Us at Dani and Brett's Wedding June 20, 2014
 

Saturday, June 28, 2014

life is loud

So, I used to be awesome at making sure I blogged and had a whole thing planned and schedule.  Lately, I have been incredibly relaxed about it.  Mainly because: My life is a lot louder, faster, more exciting and vibrant than I could stop and blog about.

I work, A LOT.  And to most people that probably sounds like a drag.  In fact, recently my in-laws were in town and I was expressing my job to them.  Honestly, when I put what I do into words it sounds SUPER depressing and not at all fun.  However, I absolutely love it and am thoroughly enjoying my career right now.  JD has been loving his job as well.  Still a security guard, but at a great location and doing really exciting things.  Plus, he is only 10 minutes from my office and we both work Monday-Friday like normal human beings now.  So we can commute together!  Yay for actually getting to spend time together during the week now!

We're loving our new space and recently inherited more furniture than I know what to do with, but we'll figure out where to put everything soon (heaven help me, it had better be soon).  I'm currently loving having a desk at home that I can work at when I am on-call with work and JD is loving having a dining room table that we can sit and eat dinner together at (I've never personally been a "dinner at the table" girl.  Growing up it was reserved for special occasions, but compromise is necessary and JD is opening my eyes to actually sitting to eat together as a normal thing).

We're loving living in Salt Lake City.  We've only ever lived in small towns with the exception of when I was at college in St. George, UT.  However, St. Geezy is fairly small in comparison to the Great Salt Lake.  We have a lot of fond memories of SLC.  We were married here, we honeymooned here, and now we live here!  It has basically rocked my world having a Target within walking distance.  No worries, I haven't gone totally crazy yet (although I have only been here a couple of months....just give it some time....) however the first week I was here I literally went to Target everyday.  Now we have broadened our shopping horizons, but Target still has a very special place in my heart.

So, expect blogging to resume but don't be too upset if I'm not blogging 5 days a week.  Perfection is impossible, so I appreciate having you here with me as I continue in my imperfect blogging journey.

Here's to being more content in not being perfect, but finding happiness regardless.


Thursday, May 1, 2014

jinx

Oh hey...

Most of your probably thought I had just quietly left the blogging world and taken up crafting or something.....

Hahaha, that's hilarious.

In reality, we had a billion life changes in the process that I desperately didn't want to talk about at the risk of jinxing the whole dang process.  So, here is the rundown...
  • We were wanting a change in our lives.  Kemmerer, WY was great and everything, but we just weren't happy.  And we didn't want to be settled down just yet.  We still are in school, we still are in our early twenties, we decided we can afford to make choices such as moving and going for a new adventure.
  • After a lot of contemplation and prayer, we set our sights on Salt Lake City.  The corporate office for JD's job is in SLC, and they were dying to get him down there to work for them.  So we figured we would start the transfer process for them, and maybe I would find something part-time.
  • Well, I decided to apply for a job with a trucking company, given my experience and knowledge of the industry, plus all of the knowledge I have from my days as a legal assistant, I thought it could possibly be a good fit.
  • I got an interview two days after completing my application.  I was offered the job just hours after the interview.  
  • JD got a call from the Salt Lake office saying they wanted him here right away.
  • So, we started apartment shopping.
  • We found the absolute perfect place in a neighborhood we love (by some strange miracle, after looking at million other places that we hated).
  • Now we are here, with none of our belongings save our air mattress, some clothes and a couch that my uncle gave us.  
  • We've been way too busy to go back to Wyoming and pack up the rest of our lives, but we're hoping to fix that in the next couple of weeks as JD's schedule normalizes.  
So....yeah....

As an apology to my absence, enjoy this picture of all of the cousins on my dad's side of the family featuring a 9-10 year old Megan front and center giving my cousin Lisa (notice how I am the baby of this group of cousins, because I was a late baby, as was my daddy...) bunny ears.




Sunday, February 16, 2014

a billion drafts and nothing to post

So, I've most definitely neglected this little blog as of late.  And I am fairly certain I have more than a few posts that begin with that introduction.

Life has been more of the same around these parts.  I work all the time, JD works all the time, every once in awhile we get to sleep at the same time and every once in an incredibly long while we'll get to have a day off together.  My new camera has been generally untouched, laundry hasn't been done in over a month (except for under-roos for when we run out), fall semester has not been registered for, after a huge snow storm (so bad that for the first time in over 20 years the kids in our town had a snow day from school) the only real concern of mine has been preventing the basement flooding and the thought of all of our things (and my parent's things) being ruined, JD and I trying to plan for the future and make big life choices (which I will tell you, is the literal worst thing about being an adult.  I have all of this power to do anything I want but I am paralyzingly afraid to use it) and, of course, working on the whole "being healthy" thing.

Our Valentine's Day was lovely.  We kept up with our tradition that we never meant to create, and got Subway and watched a movie while snuggled in bed.  JD also got me a plush rose, which is another one of our little traditions that started during his bachelor party.  Story time:  So, when we were getting ready to get married almost two years ago (!) the few days before our wedding, I was in Salt Lake City with my family and JD was in Spanish Fork with his family.  They had lots of fun playing games and even went to the nickel arcade.  At the nickel arcade JD got (with his tickets) this horrendous plush jester hat (that will now forever be in my storage somewhere...because heaven forbid we get rid of that...) and a really cute small plush rose.  He gave me this silly little plush rose the day we got married and it has become somewhat of a romantic gesture between the two of us since then.  Now I have three plush roses of varying sizes.  They're just a silly and yet sweet reminder of our wedding day and every year that passes since then.

Wow, that story was more interesting and romantic in my brain, but when typed out it does not have the amount of romance I thought it did.  Ah, oh well.  Here's my current mantra lately, I am trying to live a more passionate and meaningful life.  But more on that another time.


Friday, January 10, 2014

dear someone

Dear Hairdresser, Thank you for doing such a good job on my husband's hair.  He no longer looks like a homeless surfer. 

Dear Laundry, If you could just stop accumulating for one day, that'd be great.

Dear Uterus, Thank you for the monthly reminder that I am in fact not pregnant.  However, do you think you could be a little more subtle? Mkkkkay, Thanks.

Dear Eye Makeup, Why do you NEVER come off completely no matter how often I try to wash you off?

Dear Weather App on my Phone, There was a ridiculously terrible blizzard today.  Not "Partly Cloudy" as you promised.

Dear Christmas, Thanks for being so amazing, I haven't yet made a blog post about it because it was so awesome.  (Yuletidings are coming in blog form eventually, no worries)


 photo c89524b5-685f-431c-aee4-e6118aeb9c89_zps6568d8ee.jpgThe best attempt at a picture of my three nieces...taking a photo of two seven year olds and an 18 month old is a lot harder than you think it will be...
 
 


Sunday, January 5, 2014

sunday enlightenment: evil never will win


"My prayer is that through the spreading of righteousness, the evil hands of the destroyer can be stayed so that he will not be permitted to curse the whole world. I pray that God will overlook our weaknesses, our frailties, and our many shortcomings and generously forgive us of our misdeeds. May He bring solace to the suffering, comfort to those who grieve, and peace to the brokenhearted." 
- James E. Faust

Happy Sunday!

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

i'm baaaack and i strongly dislike new years

So, on December 20 I had surgery to remove nasal polyps.  A huge thank you and shout out goes to the University of Utah Hospital ENT team.  They were phenomenal and fantastic and surgery recovery has been so nice.  Lots of you know, I've had the surgery twice before this time around.  This time around has definitely been the BEST experience I've ever had dealing with this surgery.  Love the UofU hospital and staff, I'm now attempting to get us to have all of our doctors centralized at the University Hospital.  Because they're fantastic.  So, I've been taking it easy and easing myself back into real life.  I go back to work soon, so we're just working on getting back to normal around these parts after Christmas and surgery recovery. 

Today marks the first official day of 2014, also known as "New Year's Day."  Last night was the infamous "New Year's Eve" and I spent it in bed with my husband watching television and arguing over how hot/cold our room was.  And it was perfect.  Even when I was a single collegiate, I hated parties.  I think I went to one real "party" during my single college career and it wasn't fun.  Too loud, too many people, too few clothes on the people there, it just wasn't my thing.  Fun fact: it still isn't.  New Year's was the night where most of my roommates went out to parties and I stayed at the apartment watching movies.  I did one crazy thing in college, taking a mini road trip to the Hot Springs that were 4ish hours away in the middle of the night.  That was a crazy as I got, and I was EXHAUSTED for like a week after that escapade (curse you and your adventurous spirit, Mandy).  Because of all of these things New Year's has never been my favorite holiday. 

Also, I don't subscribe to the "resolutions" thought process.  Much like I don't believe in "epiphanies" either but that is a different conversation for a different day.  I think setting goals for yourself is a great practice, and I do this quite frequently.  However, making HUGE changes in your life just because the calendar has started over isn't a good enough reason to me.  In order to make lasting, real changes in your life YOU have to want it.  YOU have to mean it.  YOU have to work at it.  Needlessly writing out crazy, unattainable "resolutions" just because you feel social construct tells you "New Year, New Me" is something that must be done is ludicrous. 

I really like the One Little Word project, which I blogged about last year.  This year my word is CONTENT.  Content is defined as, "in a state of peaceful happiness."  This past year sent us lots of curve balls and I had SO many times where I was not content in my life or my circumstances.  This year, I want to be in a "state of peaceful happiness."  I want to be content in my life and understand that we can't always change our circumstances but we can always choose to be happy about them.  I hope to blog each month about how I'm learning to be more "content."  What's your one little word you aspire to make your mantra this year?

Happy 2014, best wishes!