Growing Up

   I have been hanging out with my nephew Michael a lot lately. He is a senior in high school this year and is always going, a lot like I was when I was a senior. The most important things in his life are school, friends and iPods, he really sounds just like me.
   When I was in high school I had a job except for my senior year and during that year I did not spend hardly anytime at home. I had a car, I had my own money and my parents house was basically a place to crash. I had no plans in mind after graduation and no clue where my life was going but I knew I would be okay.
   My nephew seems to be the same but everyone is more concerned about him than they were with me. I guess it has something to do with that he doesn't have a job yet. I suggested the national guard to him once, not knowing that he has been practically harassed by recruiters and his mom and grandma to go into the military and he kind of blew up. That doesn't appeal to him but I think it would be a great idea. The war is over, he would get to travel, make money and go to college for free. The kid is smart and I know there would be a place for him and it would open up other opportunities for him.
   The fact is that it is really easy to suggest career paths and give advise to other people but when it comes down to it, you have to make that choice and at 18 that is not very fair to ask of. I still have not gone to college and I still have no idea what I want to do as a career. I have idea's and there are things that appeal to me but everyone of them is completely different and there are a lot of things that a could do.
   Pretty soon the pressure of having to choice made me rather just give up and not do anything but in reality, I have done so much more than any of my family and peers at my age. How that worked out like that, I am not sure but I am glad that I didn't jump right into college life and start studying towards a major that I would have changed numerous times, eventually getting no where fast.
   I didn't go to college because I was not ready and I think that I made the right choice for myself. Whatever Michael decides is right for his future I am sure will be well thought out and the timing will be right for him. I am proud of who he has grown into and will wait as long as necessary, to see him become a grown up.

Beans, Burgers and Birthdays

   Yesterday our family gathered at my parents house for a bbq to celebrate my home coming and the birthdays of my Aunt Vicki, Grandma Shirley and Maggie, my sister. They all have birthdays two weeks apart.
   We started cooking and cleaning the morning of and as the guest list had gotten larger I was sent to the store for .59 per pound chicken from Smiths. It looked pretty intimidating so I just went ahead and the more expensive stuff that was already cut up. I also picked up some birthday decorations to make the day a little more special. I don't think I will ever buy streamers again because those things are hard to twist together.
   Guest started to arrive a little early, one of the first being my grandparents. They brought half of the food that was there and the whole spread looked more like thanksgiving than just a summer time get together.
   We ate too much, watched football, and enjoyed eachothers company. Everyone was feeling pretty tired after lunch but only the littlist guest fell asleep, Miss Alli. No one sang happy birthday, I think that's how it was preferred but we had a cake, further stuffing ourselves into food comma.

Living With My Parents.

   I got to say, living with your parents after you have moved out sucks, even if its just to visit. There is a reason why you don't see extended families living all under one roof anymore, it doesn't work. For the longest time it has just been Ryan, Beau and me and I have began to realize that I greatly value my free time, my me time.
   Right now I am at my parent's house while everyone who lives here is at work or school. The three dogs and six cats are still here, the cats are like annoying children, always meowing, seeking attention that I will not give as they make it hard for me to breath. I wake up every morning with a sore throat and hair in my eyes and I have noticed that I am still really tired during the days. I don't know if its jet lag or allergies but I am not taking anything for the cats.

This one never leaves me alone. 

This one is named Belle because she sounds Southern. This house reminds me of my house before I cleaned it. 

   I have killed my car around five times, learning how to drive again is proving to be not exactly like riding a bike. Remembering where people's houses are and businesses is also not something that just comes back to you, and learning how to text and make calls, just generally remembering that I have a phone is proving to be hard. Another thing that I have had to relearn is cooking, its really sad. I have almost cut myself a few times and there are so many pans here I don't know which ones I like anymore.
   Cooking for my parents is not the most rewarding experience. My dad complains that its too gourmet and my mom pretty much expects me to cook, they both yell at me to clean up my mess before I have even finished or ate. I don't understand that, why do I have to cook for five or more people and clean it up? I don't mind it, I know that it needs to be clean at the end of the night, I do it at home, every night but I think they forget I am not a child and I don't take orders too well.

"Too gourmet" squash stuffed with Jimmy Dean sausage, rice mixture... 

   Cooking here is a really stressful experience too, there is like no rhyme or reason for why things are the way they are. You pretty much have to come up with meal out of nothing because everything was just purchased with no intention of using for something specific. Also, I have no idea where anything is or where it goes, I finally found the knives yesterday, now I might now cut myself.
    I have been running away to visit Calli in the mornings at Moxie, no one bothers me and Calli is really good company to have. We talk about human behavior and how much we love animals while watching, "Freaky Eaters," on youtube. I got to meet her boyfriend too, he is from Texas so him and I talked South with each other and I think it made both of our days.

I made Calli a tuna sandwich, she said it was the BEST tuna sandwich ever, thanks Calli. 

   Also feel a bit guilty for spending money, even though I spent it on things that I had been saving for for about six months its still kind of bothers me because I don't know how much I will need to get back home to Alabama. I had planned on getting a tattoo while I was here but I don't think I can, I am going to have to wait and save more. Gas is going to get back is probably going to make me cry, we were paying about half of what it is here.

   I am just getting a bit overwhelmed being around so much family at one time. I think I need to go spend some time with my Grandma soon. Her house is like my oasis, its the only place that doesn't give me anxiety. I don't think that makes me OCD, I just appreciate open, clean, comfortable, white spaces. She lives out in Castleford with a beautiful garden all around her house, plenty of space and clean air to breath. The food tastes better, you can feel the sun warming you from the inside out when you bite into a piece from produce from her garden. I think I will go out there and ease myself back into the daily grind of real life, this is just too much too soon.

People of wal-mart right? Too little, too late. 

Arrived

   After 22 hours of flying I finally landed back in Idaho, I cried tears of joy. I have not spent time here in over a year and knowing that I will be able to see and do everything I love while in Idaho was an amazing feeling, I love this land.
   My mom was waiting for me at the airport with my nephew and Beau. I drove us back to Twin Falls and might have sped a bit ;-). Regardless of making good time we still didnt get home until 2:00AM, I slept like a rock.
   Around 7:00AM my sister came over to wake me up with Averee and Andrew, all in their pajamas. They brought me donuts and we all snuggled. Mom decided we should go get a cup of coffee and when we all were thinking about where to go since we all had pajamas on she said, "Well don't everyone get up at once."
   Not wanting to upset my impatient mother we all started putting on our shoes while she went into the bathroom to pee, brush her teeth and hair, and get dressed...15 minutes later she came out to the car and we were off to Starbucks. When we got there she parked the car, even though there is a drive threw and made us all go in, I did not have a bra on and I decided to wait in the car and she decided she didn't want coffee from there...
   So we went to Java and again parked and went inside in our pajamas but there was a line to the door and my mom got offended by it and we left to go to McDonald's. She parked the car again to make us go inside there! You know for a person who doesn't like standing in lines, she sure does opt for them a lot. 
   Next we went to my aunt Jenners house and I had to tell my stories about Abu Dhabi three different times because no one was in the same room at the same time. After that we finally were on our way to my grandma's house to pick up my car.
   When we got there my grandma was already in her garden picking the weeds. We immediately started picking fresh tomatoes and got a shopping list from my mom on what she wanted. There is nothing better then the smell of a fresh picked tomato, expect the taste of a fresh picked tomato. They are sweet like the sun.
   Averee and I stayed behind to pick veggies while Mom and Maggie went back to town for a baby shower. We picked cucumbers, squash, corn, dill, green peppers, onions, and two buckets of tomatoes on their own. Then my grandma asked if we wanted to stay for lunch, the answer to that question was a no brainer.
   She set out sandwich makings, veggies, chips and fruit. To be honest I didn't want the fruit because all the melon I had been eating in Abu Dhabi tasted old but this melon was from Haggerman and it live up to its name. I had a bologna sandwich with kraft singles and miracle whip, all things that I would never eat unless I was eating at my grandma's house and washed it down with a glass of milk. It was so good. Everything just tastes better if my grandma makes it plus the fresh produce helps.
   While I was having the best lunch I have had in last five months poor Ryan was stuck in Kuwait waiting on a plane into Iraq. I feel pretty bad that I can't share this with him but I know he will get a chance to taste fresh produce from Idaho some day.
  On Sunday Nurveta, Michael and I went hiking in the south hills. We talked about life, love, and future plans, it was very spiritual and felt great to know that what we were doing was exactly how Jesus intended church to be, painless. It was one amazing day.

Cruciatus

   A friend of mine posted on facebook, it's all I have, how he felt guilt after killing a snake. It scared him and he beat it to death with a copper pipe, he said he did it because it was poisonous and was in the middle of the break room scaring people. When I heard this story I could sympathize with him because something very similar happened to me while Ryan was gone, only not as dangerous as killing a poisonous snake in the desert.
   I once found little tiny poops on my kitchen counters, I didn't know wether they were cockroach or mouse, as I have never known a cockroach to be in a house until I moved to Alabama. I looked up what they might be and they actually looked like they could be either, the cockroaches are giant there.
   Either way, I couldn't have something spreading its fecal matter on my counter tops and potentially getting into the food I prepare. So I went to the store and picked up some traps, the sticky pad kinds. I figured that if it was a cockroach it might not set off the trap and you really, really don't want to smash those things... BLUH! I have nightmares about what came out of the first and only roach I ever smashed, it squirted about ten feet, black goo.
   So I placed the sticky pads in the corners along the wall of my kitchen like it suggested and just waited. A couple days passed before Beau and I were about to take a nap and we heard a little tapping coming from the kitchen. It was so faint I almost didn't go to investigate but Beau was already on it before I could turn around and go back to sleep.
   The wooden spoon I had left on the floor for Beau to lick clean had now been dragged to front of my dishwasher and inside the little hole under my washer were little eyes starring back at me. I found the mouse! I put a sticky pad in front of the hole and placed the spoon just beyond it and left the room to wait.
   It didn't take very long before I could hear something happening, this time is was more aggressive, the mouse was stuck to the pad and trying so desperately to free his little body. He was screaming and wiggling with all of this might and he would stop to take a breath and look at me with fear in his eyes. It broke my heart, I didn't want it to happen like this, I didn't want to see him die.
   I decided that I needed to act. I worked the spoon under him, trying not to touch him with my hands but it didn't work, the spoon just got stuck to the pad and in my attempt to free the mouse I just ended up getting more of his fur and little hands stuck. He was squeaking and breathing so fast. I couldn't do anything, I looked at Beau to fix it and asked him to just kill it, put it out of its misery.
   Beau proved to be stupid and of course showed no interest in the squeaking thing I was holding.  I ended up putting it outside with the spoon still stuck to the pad. I just couldn't watch it struggle to escape anymore. I am sure that a cat or bird got it...
   By this point I was crying my eyes out. I called Pam and left a message and then I called my mom, she answered. She couldn't understand what I was saying and tried guessing why I was so upset, I could hear worry in her voice and my dad in the background. She thought something terrible happened to Ryan. No, it was just a mouse, she understood why I was sad about it though, she gets me. My dad jokingly offered to drive to Alabama to take care of it for me, he is a sweety.
   So that is the story of the mouse I almost killed. I don't think that it was taking a life that upset me so much but more torture, even it was just a mouse we are talking about, it still made a pretty significant impact on me.

Snoring.

   Snoring, is a recent symptom that I have picked up. I snore so loudly that I wake myself up from naps in the afternoon, I also snore loud enough to keep Ryan up all night. I feel like I am turning into my mom...
   Ryan can usually sleep through a lot and when he is waking me up, trying to make me stop snoring because I am louder than the construction, jack hammers and super bikes outside our window, I know its pretty bad. He moves me all around in the middle of the night, putting pillows on my head, stuffing my camel in my face, turning me on my side, anything to make it stop. The only way for him to get sleep is if I am not, so I usually sleep in after he leaves and drool all over all of the pillows like a dog, dog gone tired.
  Aside from the recent symptom and lack of sleep my nurse is getting, my health has improved dramatically.  I no longer have nasty white ick on the back of my throat and the swelling has decreased by about half. The way we did was with a syrup made of half apple cider vinegar and half honey, something Ryan read about online.
   Vinegar and honey tastes horrible if you try and gulp it all down at once because it BURNS! and makes you want to start heaving. If you dilute it with water and sip it, the first couple sips are pretty bad but then it gets much better and you feel like a brand new person and it killed the strep in about two days.

My bed side pharmacy

      So today I am going to curl up with my camel buddy in my big fluffy bed with a bowl of hot tomato soup and apple juice. As for entertainment, yesterday I downloaded the best movie ever, Beauty and The Beast, can't wait to watch American cartoonist and writers portray the life of a beautiful French girl, who looks nothing like a girl, go against her fathers wishes and get exactly what every girl has been seeking, a Prince and a fat bank account. How I love Disney! I wonder if all of the moms die because they were just so happy?

Sick

   It seems that I usually get sick right before I have to leave. In Germany I got e coli just days before I had to leave. It was terrible I was climbing up the walls. Don't drink the water out of the faucets... anywhere. Thankfully my symptoms held off until I got home and I was over it with in the week.
   While in Abu Dhabi I have had food poisoning about eight times, eating outside of the hotel is not something I would recommend. Other than the food poisoning I have done pretty good up until just a week before I have to go home. I have strep throat, I didn't go to the doctor but I had so many times as a kid I could diagnose it three days before the bacteria shows up.
   So now I am sick in bed with a fever and worst head ache ever, my entire head hurts, ears, throat, shallowing is very difficult. Ryan has been taking really good care of me though. He brought me ice cream and soup last night and massaged all of the knots out of my back, there were a lot. I don't know what I would do without him, he is really the best nurse ever.
   If you need me, I will be sleeping. Can't wait to see my family and my puppy.