November 22nd, 2010 by Kateastrophe

Today I am thankful for my kitchen.  I love love love to cook and I really have an amazing space to cook in.  When we were looking for a new house four years ago I knew I needed a kitchen with lots of cupboard space for my gazillion kitchen gadgets (love me some kitchen gadgets) and lots of awesome counter space to spread out and work my magic.  I also wanted it to be part of the area where everyone gathers to hang out, watch football, play Wii…whatever.  I got exactly that.  My only teensie tinsey wish is that I had double wall ovens or even a range with two ovens.  To compensate I bought a roaster oven but it’s just not the same.  Other than that, it’s truly perfect.  For reals.  I’m also grateful to my Grandma, Mom, Stepmom Lisa, Dad, Grandpa, Mother-in-law and other wonderful people (including the Interwebs and the iPad which put new recipes at my fingertips!  Never make the same thing twice!  ADD cooking!!) who have taught me how to cook and passed down recipes and tips filled with love and memories.  And cream.  And butter.  And cream.

We had our Thanksgiving yesterday because of weird travel and work schedules and I loved using every bowl, dish and appliance I had at my disposal to whip up some deliciousness.  I feel bad for the guys who had to do the dishes because I use A LOT of stuff when I cook a big meal.  Like, every dish in the house.  I felt especially bad when Matt broke the first piece of our wedding china but at least it’s getting used instead of sitting in the cupboard, right??  Plus I totally planned ahead and picked out a pattern that’s been around forever and is easily replacable.  Sometimes I’m S-M-R-T.

My body is not so grateful for my kitchen today though.  I had a Pilates session tonight and I sort of HAD to eat leftovers before I went.  I’m sure I didn’t even work off half the calories and it HURT!  I was also supposed to run afterwords but that sort of…didn’t really…happen.  I came home and ate some more creamed corn instead.  Mmmmmmcreamedcorn.

November 18th, 2010 by Kateastrophe

Today I am grateful for chocolate chip cookies.  Whoever invented that ooey gooey goodness deserves and automatic ticket to heaven.

November 15th, 2010 by Kateastrophe

My husband has a brother named Mike whom I’ve never met.  He passed away in a car accident a long time ago.  Today would have been his 33rd birthday.  It’s a tragic story for so many reasons.  He was young and in the prime of his life.  He had been called to serve a mission for our church in Brazil, the same place my husband had just returned from serving his two year mission.  They were excited to both speak Portuguese and Matt was already planning a trip to go pick Mike up when he was done with his mission.  Mike was fun and joyful and wonderful.  And now, as long as they live, their family has a hole in it.

Sometimes it’s hard to know how to be there for Matt and his family because I didn’t know Mike.  I only have pictures and stories and sometimes they evoke pain instead of happiness.  I try hard to be respectful of any feelings and emotions this time of year and I try to help in any way I can but I’m sure I fail.  I’ve started some traditions to help remember Mike on his birthday.  Matt and I have sent flowers to his parents every year since we’ve been married.  It’s not much but I feel like it shows his parents that we are thinking of them and that we will never forget. This year I had a little “Remember Mike” birthday party.  I served his favorite food (pizza and chocolate cake) and we looked at pictures Matt’s Mom sent to us and talked about the memories behind them.  It was hard and it was fun all at the same time.  I can’t imagine how difficult it must be for Matt’s family to think about the days when Mike was still here but I hope that somehow talking about the good times helps keep his memory alive.  Besides, I love learning about some of the things that Mike and I have in common because as it turns out, there are quite a lot of those things.  I also love learning about how we were different and about the things that he struggled with.  It makes him much more real to me.

It’s hard to understand why God would take such a wonderful, vibrant young man from his family.  Sometimes I think it’s maddening and infuriating and just downright unfair - something I feel like I’m saying a lot lately.  (I maybe have some pent up rage??)  However, as unfair as life sometimes is, as I’ve also been saying a lot lately, I believe that God gives us hard experiences to make us stronger.  I also believe that sometimes the lesson we are supposed to learn or the reason for a trial or difficult life challenge may not be made known in this lifetime. Yes, sometimes that makes me mad.  Sometimes I think we deserve explanations for why we suffer. Most of the time, much to my dismay, I don’t get my way.  Life is hard and it’s hard for a reason.  None of us can grow and progress unless we are stretched to our limits.  I’m grateful to believe in a God who is well aware of what those limits are and who will never, ever give us more than we can handle or stretch us too far.

Today I am grateful for the knowledge that I have that families are forever - Mike will be with his family again someday and I will have a chance to meet him and got get to know him. I believe he is in heaven with my future children and grandchildren, preparing them for this wild Earth ride.  I don’t think the LDS Church is alone in the belief of being with our loved ones in Heaven but I do believe that the focus we put on the eternal nature of families makes us unique and gives so much comfort when hard things like this happen.  We speak often about the Plan of Happiness and why we believe the Lord sent us to Earth.  Worthy members of the Church are sealed together for time and all eternity in our marriage ceremony…not just until death do we part.  Our entire focus is on keeping families together.  I love that.  That is my truth.  I’m so grateful for a God who has a plan (he must have known that I’m a big fan of plans) to help us all return to live with Him with the relationships we’ve formed on Earth intact.  As hard as it is that Mike isn’t here, I’m so glad to know without a doubt that he’s alive and well watching over our family every single day.

————-

***If you’d like to learn more about what my family and other Mormons believe, you can visit the new and improved Mormon.org.  There is a whole section of questions and answers, a live chat feature (ooooh, aaaaah) and a way to find the testimonies of people just like you.  You can also request a free Book of Mormon here and even schedule an appointment with the missionaries if you would like.  I try hard not to be preachy and I truly respect the beliefs of all so please understand that I would never force this on anyone.  Despite being raised in a heavily Mormon society, I did my best to study other beliefs and religions and after much soul searching and prayer, THIS is what I believe and know to be true. The comfort and peace as well as miracles and blessings my beliefs have brought to me over the years are undeniable.  If you’re searching for something more, do me a favor and just look into it.  If you’re curious, look into it.  Either way you can learn something new and maybe help people understand that Mormons REALLY don’t have horns and we REALLY aren’t all polygamists.  And yes, I’ve seriously been asked both questions before.  Also, I’m also always here to answer any questions you might have.  You can email me anytime at kateastrophe(at)cox(dot)net***

November 14th, 2010 by Kateastrophe

Today I am grateful for people of honesty and integrity.  I think I naively assumed for most of my life that everyone was doing their best to be honest and do what was right.  Sadly, as I’ve grown up I’ve encountered more and more dishonestly and selfishness in the world. 

I try my very best to be truthful with those around me and to be exactly who I am, good or bad.  I’m nowhere near perfect in that respect but I do make a conscious effort every day.  I believe very strongly that others are trying to do the same thing.  Most people are good at heart.  Most people are trying to live their lives the best way they know how.  I’m grateful that I’ve encountered enough good people in my life to still believe that. I’m also sad to have encountered my fair share of dishonesty as well.

A passage from the book “The Kite Runner” jumped off the pages at me when I read it a few years ago.  Baba is speaking to his son Amir and says:

“Now, no matter what the mullah teaches, there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft… When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife’s right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone’s right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness… There is no act more wretched than stealing, Amir.”

Reading this passage was a “holy crap” kind of moment for me.  I had to stop reading to process it.  When I lie to someone, I am stealing their ability to make a decision about the situation based on the reality.  I mean, a little white lie doesn’t seem so bad until you call it stealing!  I would never STEAL!  But I have. And I continue to do so more often than I’d like to admit and I wish more people could understand this concept.  I wish a husband and father who decides to cheat and lie about it could realize that he’s stealing his wife’s ability to make a decision about her life and her family and that in the end, he may have robbed his children of a normal life and caused more damage and hurt than he could ever know.  I wish that corrupt executive staff members lying about their company’s financial state to make themselves look good or to take home a huge salary and bonus are robbing their employees out of the chance to work for a stable company or earn that huge stock bonus they were promised…and many times, rob them right out of a job when the bottom falls out.  I wish our government officials would stop thinking only of themselves and where the money is coming from and start being honest with the people that voted them in so that we might have a chance to vote based on something other than an image and a fancy ad campaign.  I wish so many things could be so much more honest.

While it seems that as I get older my faith in honesty dwindles, if I pay attention there are people all around me showing me what it is to be better and honorable.  I’ve had so many wonderful examples of telling the truth even when the consequences might be grave.  People like my high school friend Katy who, when we’d come in at 4 am and her Mom would be awake and ask us if we were just waking up or just going to sleep, would look her in the eye and tell her without blinking that we were just coming in.  And her Mom trusted her - and us - more because of it.  Like my brother Sean who tells it how he sees it no matter what.  Like my friends Alissa, Anne and Sheila who all have special needs kids and they are willing to talk honestly and openly about how very difficult and frustrating it really is but still fight every single day to give their children the best life possible. Like the woman in front of me at the store the other day who came back to give the cashier a dollar he’d accidentally given her in change.  If I stop focusing on the negative, there are examples everywhere of honest people doing the right thing.  I am grateful that they are there and that sometimes I remember to look for them.  I just hope I can someday be one of those examples instead of the person looking for them.

November 9th, 2010 by Kateastrophe

I’m almost scared to say what I’m about to say “out loud” but here goes nothing.

Today I am grateful for my trials and hardships.  Let me be clear.  I don’t particularly want more of them…at least right now, but I am truly thankful for not having had an easy life.  I think I’m also grateful that there’s really not anyone who has an easy life.  That in itself makes me feel a little less picked on when I’m not feeling so grateful.  Just saying.

So here’s the deal.  It’s not that I’ve had the HARDEST LIFE EVER, but the last 30 years haven’t been anywhere close to a cake walk.  I hesitate to make a list but sometimes it almost makes me laugh to see some of the things I’m comfortable talking about lumped together.  My parents had a rough, ROUGH marriage that ended in divorce after the fourth child was born.  The details are sordid and disturbing but it’s probably as bad as you can imagine unless you imagine physical abuse because luckily there was none of that.  My baby brother was just a few months old and my Mom had lost half the blood in her body after he was born and basically died but came back and THEN she and my Dad split up for the final time.  And that’s just the first six years of my life.  And it got worse before it got better.  Much worse.

Through all of it, despite odds stacked against us, my siblings and I became some pretty amazing people.  We all still struggle with our demons, but I can see that the trials we suffered (or even brought upon ourselves) were truly for our good.  I can’t speak for my brothers and sister, but I can tell you that I have a faith in so many things that no one will ever be able to shake and that is because of the hard things I went through.  I know who I am.  I know what I want.  I know what I believe.  No one can ever take those things away from me.

I know there are people who look at my life now and think I’ve got it made.  In some ways I do, but there aren’t free passes through life and I definitely haven’t found a way around that rule.  However, I’m grateful for that.  I’m (begrudgingly, at the moment, but I’ll get over that) grateful that I’ve had miscarriages because I now have a greater appreciation for the miracle that is bringing a life into this world and I have much  empathy for those who struggle to do so.  I can’t say that I will appreciate my children more than anyone else alive once I have them, but I can say that I will personally appreciate them more than I would have if this process had just been easy.  As someone who has struggled with the sacrifices I have to make to be a Mother, there could not have been a more valuable lesson for me to learn.  Where there used to be doubt, now there is a firm resolve.  Where there was fear, there is longing and excitement.  Those feelings make it worth it.

Allow me to wax religious for a moment.

A dear friend of mine recently shared with me some things he’d been pondering and researching related to trials.  The conclusions he’d come to resounded with me.  He said he’d realized that of course the Lord is conscious of our trials and weaknesses and that every single “bad” thing that happens to us is tailored for our personal growth.  Also, for the most part, our trials are physical issues that will eventually be left behind when we die.  As we move on to the next life the lessons we learned from the physical trial stay with us forever but the phsycial portion of that trial is gone.  So, trials are necessary but temporary, even though that’s hard to remember at the moment of hardship. 

On top of it all, because the Lord is conscious of us and our weaknesses and strengths, he doesn’t allow a trial to enter our lives until we are ready to deal with it.  What this means is that the Lord isn’t giving us trials to be mean or just do do it.  It means that He trusts us enough to make life hard.  When you look at it that way, it becomes a whole new ballgame.

I think I’ve used this quote before, but I come back to it again and again:

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”  - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

If God is building a palace in which to dwell and I need some more work before that’s a possibility, I will be thankful for the free, even if painful, remodel.

November 7th, 2010 by Kateastrophe

Today I am grateful for technology.  Matt and I are self-proclaimed techno-geeks (not as much as some but we can definitely hold our own) and it’s not rare to find us Skyping from the next room or streaming Netflix through out Blu-Ray while playing on our iPad getting internet from the wireless router upstairs, or on a bad day for the router, from next door.   Today I was cooking while streaming Pandora through the TV which in turn allowed me to use the surround sound LOUDLY and irritate my neighbor who kept me up last night (ahhh payback) while he lounged by his pool.  I’m fairly certain that without the internet and my DVR  I would die a slow and painful death because I would scratch my own face off out of boredom and lack of communication with the outside world.  I mean I certainly wouldn’t know what was going on with Damon and Elena on Vampire Diaries or be able cook anything OR figure out how to get that %$#@ grease stain off of my stove top.  (PS the answer is ALWAYS Mr. Clean Magic Eraser - add dish soap if it doesn’t work with water and then rinse and dry with a towel.  I’m not kidding that combo would make a dead body disappear into thin air.)(You’re welcome.)

When I’m not getting yelled at for looking at my BlackBerry too much (guilty as charged.  My bad), technology makes my life so much easier and has helped me stay in contact with so many friends and family (and even make NEW friends!  Hi blog friends!! I heart you!) and has truly blessed my life.  I can Skype my Dad from across the world while he is living and working in China.  I can email my best friend a hilarious (or horrifying) picture at any time.  I can plan a wedding from 650 miles away or text a picture of the perfect fabric or serving dish for a birthday party to my co-party planner.  I can skip taking my bulky scriptures to church and use my trusty iPod to look up any lesson, hymn or scripture in a split second.  It’s awesome.  I love that I can get a map with directions for anywhere we want to go in about a minute on my phone and with the click of a button, voila it’s acting as a GPS or another click and BAM! recommendations for a restaurant.  I love love love text messaging and BB Messenger with all my heart.  I’m a Facebook fanatic and keep finding old friends that I LOVE reconnecting with on there.  And don’t even get me started on online shopping…be still my heart.

Sometimes, I go too far and sometimes I need to take a step back and remember to communicate with my husband face to face.  But most of the time?  It’s freaking rad what we can do.  I’m grateful people much smarter than I could ever hope to be figured all this stuff out so that my life could be just a little more awesome than it was in high school - and I thought I was super awesome back then because I had a purple pager and knew what 1-4-3 meant.  Oh how far we’ve come.  LOL!  TTYL!!

November 4th, 2010 by Kateastrophe

“Think where man’s glory most begins and ends,
And say my glory was I had such friends.”
- William Yeats

Today I am thankful for girlfriends.  

I’m grateful for the girlfriends who love me anyway when I’m grumpy and mean,  who hold me when I cry or just know when I need that phone call, email or visit and who can always find a way to make me laugh - even if it means ultimate self-humiliation (and trust me, they’ve gone to great lengths to humiliate themselves to get me to crack a smile)!

I’m grateful for girlfriends who don’t judge me even when I’m at my very, most awful, horrible worst.  I’m also grateful that you are willing to pull me back into reality and give me tough love when I need it.

I’m grateful for girlfriends who can make me laugh until I can’t breathe or talk and end up shooting some sort of liquid or food item out my nose or mouth.  It happens more often than I’d like to admit but at the same time, not as much as I’d like.

I’m grateful for women who are willing to bare their souls and allow me to do the same.  It’s always amazing to once again find out I’m not alone in feeling broken or inadequate.   It’s even more amazing how much sharing those feelings with women who love me makes me realize I’m actually not as broken as I thought I was but, even the little bit of broken that I am makes me who I am and they wouldn’t change my cracks.

I’m grateful that finding awesome women and becoming friends with them is something I’ve been able to do throughout my life.  I am so glad that I have amazing friends close by and far away and even  some I’ve never met but who I love just as fiercely as the girlfriends I’ve known for a better part of my life.  I have a world full of wonderful women I can turn to at any moment and some days, knowing that keeps my world turning.

I’m grateful for women who are such amazing examples of what it is to be a loving and supportive wife/mother/friend and most importantly, true examples of what it is to be Christlike.  Being part of their lives makes me a better person and I know each one of them was placed in my path for a very specific reason and I will be forever grateful for each one of them and the ways they help me grow.

So, to each of you I say a humble thank you for being a part of my life.  I cannot even begin to express what you mean to me and how much I love you.

November 3rd, 2010 by Kateastrophe

I was sort of lying.  Today, after my normally 45 minute commute decided to kick my butt at a full hour and twenty minutes (!?!?!?!?!) and a morning meeting with horrible breakfast buffet food (seriously, who thought scrambled eggs in a chafing dish was a good idea?  The bottom of my eggs were GREEN) I have delved back into the world of pissed off.  It probably didn’t help that I found the ultrasound picture of lost baby #2 in my drawer at work while looking for something.  It was all I could do to not crawl under my desk and sob for a while.

In the battle of Kate vs. Her Hormones I’d say the hormones are winning at about 10,000 to minus 45,000.  I’ve read somewhere that post-partum despression can be worse after a first trimester miscarriage than after a baby because the hormones are so crazy during the first three months.  I obviously don’t know what after baby post-partum is like but I can tell you this second time around is kicking my a**.  I’m not really in a deep dark pit of despression.  It’s more like I’m bi-polarly psychotic verging on homocidal maniac.  People are literally ducking when they pass my office and I’m fairly certain my husband has a secret bag packed and he’s planning on leaving for a long, possibly endless vacation tonight.

During all of this, my psychoticness has decided that I MUST, without question or argument, go on a trip for Thanksgiving.  I sort of want to be somewhere warm with a beach.  Mind you, I don’t even like the beach but it sounds good.  I found a killer deal on a Thanksgiving cruise to the Carribean for $900 for two people in a cabin with a balcony (HOLY CRAP, right?!?!) but the plane tickets to Florida that week?  $800 EACH.  Eff.  I also found a six day trip to London including hotel and airfare for $699 a person (OMG).  My loving husband says “Um, this is the worst time of year to go to London.”  I in turn screamed (yes, screamed) “HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU’VE NEVER BEEN THERE!?!?!?”  I might work on convincing him tonight.  Food in London is gross but everything else is awesome and bonus, I already know how to get around everywhere on the Tube.  We may just end up there because I happen to love London, the trip is dirt cheap and super bonus, I already speak the language.

If anyone has frequent flier miles they’d like to donate to me, I will send you lots of homemade food in return.  Bad moods make me want to cook and not to brag, but I’m really good at it.

Today I am grateful for sunroofs.  I don’t get outside much during the few light hours of the day and driving to work (even if it does take ten years) is made much more pleasant by the wind and sunshine coming in the top of my car.  I’m also really superficial and grateful for my car.  It’s gorgeous and awesome and drives at just the right level of aggressive for my current state of mind.  Also, it’s really safe just in case I happen to decide to introduce it to a pole.  I’m joking.  About the pole.  I really do love my car.

November 2nd, 2010 by Kateastrophe

As of Saturday, my mood has improved by 1000% (though I’m still on the side of grouchy fo sho but I’m doing much much better).  I’m thanking the makers of chocolate, Diet Coke, Starbucks hot chocolate with toffee mocha syrup and whoever invented the concept of best friends.  Oh and Dexter.

I went to the doctor this morning and things have taken care of themselves without invasive surgery or that hefty medical deductible.  I still have a large cyst hanging out on my left ovary and it appears I do have a slightly heart shaped uterus, but that shouldn’t be a problem unless any future babies decide to burrow in right at the crease.  It might cause problems with delivery since sometimes babies get stuck in a breech position, but other than that, I appear good to go.  It doesn’t look like I have a hostile environment for growing a baby and so these miscarriages APPEAR to have just been natural happenstance.  I might need the help of extra hormones in the future, but we won’t know that until we know that.  The doc said if I miscarry again (oh for the love, please no) that they’ll start running gazillions of tests but he doubts it will get to that point.  Overall it was a good appointment and bonus, none of that no pants dance stuff AND I made my doctor laugh pretty hard.  I think making an OB/GYN laugh takes talent so I’m pretty proud of myself.

So now that we’re through that, what the crap happened to October?  I seriously cannot believe it’s November.  I’ve started my Christmas shopping and we’re trying to decide what to do for Thanksgiving.  Part of me REALLY wants to just go into debt and go on a trip to Mexico or a Caribbean cruise or something equally spontaneous.  But then we realize if we spend money on that, it takes money away from Europe and that is no good at all.  Also, there might be a family trip to China in my future so I should probably save up for that as well.  Yay for exotic vacations.  Boo for limited vacation and cash flowage. 

In the spirit of being thankful, every time I post in November I’m going to try to remember to say something I’m thankful for.  Despite a pretty crappy few months I still have a lot of things that are right so I think it’s high time I focus on those.

Today I am thankful for a sense of humor that helps me get through hard times.  Finding something in a tragic situation to laugh at sometimes makes the world keep spinning and I’m so glad that either myself or someone around me has the wherewithal to help me find humor in life.  The Ladies of Saturday Night Live that was on NBC last night helped too.  I don’t care who you are, you have to admit that Kristin Wiig as the weird sister with the tiny doll hands is some funny crap, Gilda Radner was the queen of all comedy and Amy Poehler does a freaking awesome and hilarious impression of Christopher Walken.  To sum it up: Yay for laughter!