How is it already almost April?!

I have decided that St Patrick's Day is my new favorite holiday

When it comes to holiday themed food anyway

I don't know why it never full clicked in my head that St. Patrick's Day = green and green = mint

And I just happen to LOVE mint flavored things

Mint ice cream, mint Oreos, chocolate mint....

So if you're friends with me on Pinterest, I'm sorry for inundating your page with recipes and the like

It's sure to calm down soon :)

But I only pin the most amazing things, so I'm sure it will be worth your while ;)

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This post was supposed to say:

"Yay, I'm going on my trip!!"

We decided that it needed to happen and I needed to go, so I planned it all out

I told my friend I was coming and she was going to let me stay with her

I told my family I was going and to expect souvenirs

But I decided to wait to announce it to the rest of the world until I had my tickets

Finally the day had come, I sat down to purchase my tickets

After finally picking the airport, I found a really good deal and after telling Hubby what I found, I went to book it

I got to the point of entering my information when I had a little thought

"Self, remember how Papa Smurf told you to make sure you could travel with your passport still being in your maiden name and everything else in your married name?"

Oh yeah

I should look into that

I'm sure it will be fine, but better safe than sorry

Cause I'm really good at coming up with the worst case scenarios in everything

Called the passport people, explained the situation, and felt my heart drop when the lady told me that I couldn't travel with my passport and license in different names

If they did check more ID than my license I would be in trouble

I could risk it if I wanted, but she couldn't guarantee anything

Seriously?

I told her I had my marriage license, cause everywhere else has accepted that, but she said that wouldn't do any good

It just about broke my heart

I had already told my friend I was coming and now I would have to tell her that I couldn't

I waited a few days, trying to decide if I really was going to play it safe, or if I was going to take the risk

I read a lot of reviews online of people who had traveled in different names and had been just fine

And I was *this* close to saying "to heck with it all, I'm going!!"

Trying to be all reckless and brave

Something I'm not really good at

But then the over-thinking part of my brain took over and all I could think of was not being able to get back into the US, if I could even leave at all

It doesn't help that my passport expires on the 5th of April

What if I got stuck in England and then my passport expired?!

Then I'd be in big trouble

I could have renewed my passport, but there wasn't enough time to do it by mail and the only other option was a passport agency

The closest one is about a 2-hour drive

And even then there was no guarantee

Bother

Looks like I'm not going

And then she messaged me asking when I was going to fly in

Fine, I won't put it off any more

I pretty much cried the whole time I was writing the message

And felt this huge weight settle on my shoulders...and a rock settle in my stomach

I hate not always being able to be there for people

Or help them

Or anything

I just don't like feeling like I've let people down

And I had a hard time shutting up my anxiety until she messaged me back

Obviously she was fine with it and understood, but just hearing it made me feel a lot better

England

That's where I was going to go

London specifically

That beautiful place that I have always wanted to visit and explore

Hubby has already told me that we'll plan a trip to go soon, so at least there's that

But I'm still a little bummed

There is a good thing that came out of it though

Instead of using our taxes for the trip we were able to use them for some new furniture!!

That will be delivered today!!

(Because as always it took me a few weeks to write this post)

We're only slightly excited :)

Having a lovesac and the floor as our only seating has certainly made us grateful for couches and the like

Especially when the lovesac isn't big enough for both of us

I will be sure to take pictures when they arrive

And Hubby is taking a half day off to be here when it comes

Which makes the day even better!!

****

And our marriage has become officially inaugurated

The other night Hubby went to brush his teeth and accidentally grabbed my toothbrush

And didn't notice

And I wasn't in the room so I didn't either 

Until it was pretty much too late

Mine is the blue one

I had a little bit of a hard time with it

(I know, it's not like we don't share germs anyway....but still....)

It certainly took our marriage to a whole new level ;)

New furniture and sharing toothbrushes

That is how we do things in Iowa

I should post more often so they're not so ridiculously long

It's been way too long

Part of me has been avoiding the blog because I'm not sure what to say

And a lot of what I do have to say lately has had the potential to get me in trouble so I chose not to say it

I'm laughing at myself now for when I said that I would be writing more on my blog

Even though I'm home now all day every day it still doesn't feel like there are enough hours in the day

I don't think it ever will

I wake up when Hubby does, begrudgingly

He showers while I meander in and out of the bathroom disrupting his shower trying to wake myself up

I take him to work every morning (there is no free parking where he works...it's either meter or a "pay for the day" underground parking type thing...and while we only have one car and we don't need a second yet, it just makes more sense for me to have the car since they don't charge us to park in our driveway...luckily)

As soon as I get home I change and get on the treadmill (most mornings anyway...I usually have to gauge how bad the headache of the day is, and sometimes I forego the treadmill and just shower) (this morning I didn't get on the treadmill for multiple reasons...hence I'm taking the time to write this post)

If I do get on the treadmill, I'm making myself suffer on it for a little over an hour

But I always do a good 10 minute stretch before hand

And then I do a 10ish minute stretch afterwards

Then it comes time for breakfast

Most mornings I eat oatmeal, so I have to wait for the water to boil and then for the oatmeal to cook

Sometimes I wash dishes whilst waiting

Sometimes I just sit at the table and read (I most definitely prefer this wait to the other)

Then I have to get ready for the day which fortunately doesn't take as long as it used to since I don't wear make-up every day right now (shhh...don't tell)

Then I usually have an hour before I have to get lunch ready for Hubby and I

Take him lunch, spend an hour with him, come home usually by 2:00

Then I have 3 hoursish before I pick him up for the day

I have my class that I'm trying to finish before May, I have a gazillion projects that I'm in the middle of, and then there's the cleaning the house, and trying to make it look like we're not still living out of boxes

And that is hard to pretend since we don't even have bookshelves for the magnitude few movies and books we (I) have

After Hubby gets home, he does some things on his computer, we watch a couple of things together, make dinner, and then just have a couple of hours before we should be in bed

I know that my days are a lot more lax than they were before, but it doesn't ever feel like there's enough time to do all that I want/need to do

And I know when we start having kids the hours will keep flying by

(no, that is not an announcement)

So the blog has, once again, been put on the back burner

I am even wanting to update the look of the blog and started on that as well

(one of the gazillion projects)

But I kind of lost my momentum working on other things and I don't remember where I wanted to take it, so that's on hold until my brain decides to cooperate

****

There's a possibility that I just maybe might be going on a trip to a far away land next month

I have a very close friend from my mission who is getting married and wants me to be there

So I'm going to do my best

We got a decent refund back on our taxes, so hopefully with that...

I'm torn because we still have to buy a couch, bookshelves, coffee type table for the living room, we have some debt we could pay off...

But I really want to be there for her

And I'm not going to lie, I would love to go to this place

It's somewhere I've always wanted to go

But we're going to sit down tonight and discuss and see if we can technically afford for me to

We definitely can't afford for both of us to go and that's one of the things that's holding me back

I don't know

We'll see what happens

I'm sure it will work out for the best either way

I feel like typing the name of said far away land will jinx any possibilities of me going...so I'm not going to say it just now

I know, I am silly

****

The next time I see someone complaining about Utah drivers on FB, I am going to tell them to come drive in Iowa for a few weeks and then we'll discuss it

I am so tired of seeing people just blow through stop signs and act like they're not even there just so they don't have to wait for one more car to pass them

And don't even get me started on 4-way stops

They don't seem to understand how they work

People that get there after me seem to think that they can go before me

Not how it works, folks

Also also don't get me started on the cutting off people do

I swear it's like I'm invisible driving down the road

And then there are the typical pedestrians that act like they own the road...I think it's even more of a thing in small cities with small streets

We also live near an elementary school and drive past it every morning as I take Aaron to work

If we leave our house between 8:00 - 8:10 we get to deal with the morning drop off traffic

And it appears that the rules of driving don't apply to the parents dropping off their children

We have had to slam on our breaks so many times from being cut off

And that can get kind of scary when the roads are slippery from bad weather

You would think that people who drive in snow so often would have a little more sense and be a little more careful....

But to be fair, I would imagine that any place you go has drivers that act like the rules don't apply to them

I hear talk all the time about California drivers and New York drivers

I wouldn't be surprised if most big cities had crazy drivers

I can only speak for Utah and now Iowa

(and Brazil and Spain....)

And while Utah has some drivers that could stand to take the course again, I've seen worse here just in the 3 months (TODAY!! 3 months TODAY!!)  that I've been here

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One last thing before I sign off

I'm about to get on a little bit of a soap box here...

(I feel like I've been on a lot of those here lately...apparently I have things that need to be said....or so I seem to think)

Hubby and I went to Wendy's the other day for lunch

We were craving some hamburgers and their's sounded good

As we were waiting in line we were talking, discussing what we were going to order, when we both noticed a commotion just in front of us

Apparently there was a customer who was unsatisfied with her order and was choosing to let it be known

Very loudly

Hubby and I have both worked customer service/retail for a VERY long time so we've had our fair share of...tough customers

So we both got quiet to watch and see what was going on

At one point the customer looked at the lady who apparently had originally helped her and said "Did you not even listen to me when I ordered?"

The poor cashier looked like she had been hit by a truck

"Yes...of course I did..."

After that point we really couldn't hear any more that happened except the random "I'm sorry" and "you wanted this?" and whatever else to fix the order

The customer left the counter just before our turn came

We ordered and we both tried to be extra friendly just to help cheer the cashier up

During the middle of our order the customer came up, yet again, to complain about something else that was wrong

The cashier, understandably, got distracted and started to listen to what was going on

All I could hear was "I'm getting really pissed off", "This is ridiculous", etc

The cashier's feathers got ruffled (can't say that I blame her) and she had a hard time remembering what she was doing

We just smiled and told her we understood and told her it seemed like she was having a rough moment

"Yeah..."

"You make one mistake..."

I just smiled and told her that no one was perfect

The look of gratitude on her face as we were leaving made me really grateful that we were there when we were and we were able to cheer her up a little

We sat near enough to the customer that I could see her complaining a little longer to whoever she was with and then watched as the manager (I think) came up and offered her a free frosty and said that she was sorry and she would talk to the cashier and find out what happened

The customer just went off again for a few minutes before the manager was able to get back to what she was doing

Now, I don't know the whole situation, obviously, and it looked like the cashier probably really did make a mistake

What bugged me was how the customer handled the situation

I get the frustration behind it all, I do, but being nasty does not do anyone any good and it doesn't get you anywhere

Seriously, cashiers aren't perfect, as much as we try to be, and sometimes we make mistakes, as not cool as that is

But yelling at us and being rude to us doesn't help at all

It just makes defenses go up and the more everyone gets angry the less listening we actually do

There are better ways to handle a situation like that

You know, get your problem fixed, whatever is wrong or messed up, or whatever, fix it

In a nice, considerate way

Bring the problem to light, that's fine

But we don't have to be rude about it

In any situation in life, being rude, nasty, loud, and mean is just not worth it

None of us are perfect and sometimes we do things we regret, but lately it feels like everywhere I turn people are choosing to be rude and loud

Given the scenarios, I think anyone would rather help the nice person

I will bend over backwards to fix whatever is wrong with whatever it is when you're nice

You turn nasty on me? And it makes me want to help you even less

*end rant*

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ANYWAY....

I feel like I should end with something light

Hummm...I talk to myself on the treadmill

Out loud, I laugh, I tell myself I'm crazy, I carry out full blown conversations with myself

Eventually I realize what I'm doing and try to shut myself up

Sometimes it takes awhile...but I usually listen to myself and stop talking out loud

And then I become really grateful that I am alone in the house in the mornings when I get on the treadmill

****

And one more because I found it funny...

We've had some crazy wind storms since we moved here

Crazy!!

Everything gets blown away that isn't bolted down or ridiculously heavy kind of crazy

A blustery day in Winnie the Pooh land kind of crazy

We had a crazy wind storm that really had some fun throwing the snow around carving it

That was a nutso storm and made me oh so grateful for our warm home

The other day was one of those days and it just happened to be garbage/recycling day so I was a little worried that our cans would be taken away by the wind to some unknown land when they were empty because they wouldn't have any weight to hold them down

They usually come to empty them after I've taken Hubby to work, so as soon as I got off the treadmill I looked out the window to see if the trucks had come by yet

They had and this is what I saw

Our garbage can made it all the way over to our neighbor's driveway

And our recycling "can"?

All the way down the street in the middle of the road

(although, I do have to say that I like the way that picture turned out...considering it was my phone, I was cold, and in a hurry...)

So not nice

And the lid to the "can", well that was even more amusing

It decided it was bored and blew around the corner onto another street to have a party with a bunch of other lids

Now I had just finished on the treadmill and hadn't showered yet, so I was all sweaty, I was still in my basketball shorts and t-shirt...I looked like a mess

I didn't really want to go outside looking like that, especially in the freezing cold

I wanted to shower and eat breakfast first

But I was afraid if I left them out there any longer, especially the can in the middle of the road, we might never get them back

So I threw on a sweatshirt, apologizing to it for subjecting it to my nastiness, put on some crocks, and ran outside in all of my gross, sweaty glory

Man it was cold

(it certainly cooled me off after my workout)

And I'm sure all of the neighbors that were watching (cause they have nothing better to do with their time I'm sure) got a kick out of seeing me running around in my shorts with my hair all matted and freezing to my head

Especially when I stepped onto what looked like a frozen snow bank to take a picture that ended up being not so frozen and collapsed under me

Remember how I was in shorts and crocks??

Not one of my brighter moments, that's for sure

I was pretty much frozen solid by the time I got back in (because the wind picked back up again when I walked outside, obviously) that I almost skipped breakfast just so I could shower and warm up

I didn't, but let me tell I sure did enjoy that shower once I got there!!

Moral of the story? Tell the wind it's not allowed to blow so strongly on garbage day, obviously

And that is our life currently

We pretty much just stay in the house cause it's so cold/snowy outside

It'll be interesting to see this land when it's not covered in snow or fog

I have had a migraine all day

2 excedrin migraine and a can of Cherry Pepsi later and it's finally starting to fade

I hope you all have a wonderful evening

I am off to spend some time with the Hubby and nurse my head with girl scout cookies

Cause you know, they are the cure to migraines