The Trip From H- E- Double Toothpick

At least that's how Mom would describe it. But since I prefer the real word, HELL. Major. I left SLC at about 10:00 AM. The goal was 9:00. But considering when I left last week for SLC, four hours late, that' pretty darn good. My goal was around noon, and we actually didn't pull out until around four, and then when I was on the road I remembered the whole oil thing. I was about 5000 miles past the "change your oil" time and got a little nervous. Called my new trusty friend Jason, and the man highly recommended I go back to Idaho Falls and get my oil changed. "I mean Rebecca, what's an extra half hour when you're running this late anyway." Good point Jason, thanks for the tip.

Back to the real day from hell. Now in all fairness I should say the day from heaven and hell, because as Anna so aptly put it, "We weren't alone." So I'm driving in the middle of freaking no where. We're talking miles of sage brush, snow covered hills. I'm driving along, thinking everything is just dandy when my "low gas" light (or whatever it says light) pops on. "Okay," I think and I look up to my little thing that tells me how many miles I have left. Usually it would say 60 miles or so, and at the worst "low". However, to my great dismay, horror, and panic stricken pea sized brain (evidently) it says "-E-". What the heck? I have never seen that one before. I've been driving this good old van for almost 9 years and I've never seen "-E-". Alright, there must be a town up here soon, an exit, a cow even. No. Just more hills, more sagebrush, more miles of road. I start praying, I start cussing, I repent for cussing and pray again. I start repenting of everything I've ever done, and not done, begging for mercy. Pleading for heaven's help. A green sign. Fillmore 8 miles. 8 miles?! Can I go 8 miles? More praying. More pleading. More hoping against hope, and cursing myself for being my typical self. 7 miles, to go, 6 miles, 5 miles until probably 1 1/2 miles, and then quiver, shake, silence. No more gas. It's officially gone. Luckily I'm going downhill. I coast. I coast off the interstate. I can see a Chevron. You lovely, lovely, beautiful place. I start honking, warning all cars that I won't be stopping at the stop sign. My van dies officially and I'm probably 100 yards or less away from the gas station. Wow. Whew. That was worse than Space Mountain and Indi rolled into one (for those of you confused, I'm referring to my Disneyland disorder, I think I'm the first official case, and will send you the links when the research is published). Later in the bathroom, when I'm still trying to focus on my breathing, I say to Anna, "Thanks for stickin with your mom, even if she's a cuok" (pronounced with an oo in the middle, not to be confused with cook). "Oh, we weren't alone Mama." "What do you mean Anna, there's other moms out there as cuoky as me." "No, I mean, WE WEREN'T ALONE" (caps for emphasis in Anna's tone). "Oh. You're right. You're so right my sweetness, so, so right."

Now I know that is such a beautiful, miraculous story and I should be satisfied with that, but I'm a first class whiner. Gas cans. I had to buy a gas can. Brace yourself. Hold onto your desk, something with holding power. $15. $15!!! $15 people!!!! And as Anna put it, "It doesn't even have gas in it?!" That's right Anna. Welcome to your mother's life. The expensive, disorganized, stressful one that seems to have no end to the annoyance of it all. So I need to add to my new year's resolutions, "Carry gas can with me at all times (at least in my van, not my purse), and never by a gas can again!" So I guess that's actually a new life resolution. Sigh.

Now, I have something very important to say. If you have a travel folder where you keep special dreams, you know, magazine articles on romantic trips or something similar, this needs to be put into this folder. Otherwise, major mental note, in the important file in your brain. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT, travel on President's Day if it is the very day after Valentine's Day. Resist the temptation. Why you may ask? One word. Traffic. No. Excuse me. 5 words. Five hour rush hour traffic!!! FIVE HOURS!!!!! I thought I was going to lose my mind. After about 2 hours my right leg really started to throb, due to the fact I can't use cruise control in bumper to bumper traffic.

I almost lost my mind. It was truly a close call, but thankfully, the more time I spend with our heaven sent Elle, the more of my mind becomes sane again. There is truly something magical, literally magical, like Harry Potter magical, about a baby. They must emit some kind of pheromone that causes you to fall hard and utterly in love with them. So the drive from hell was worth it. More than worth it. More worth it with every minute I spend with a special person who barely left the arms of the Savior. Who must be with Him often still, because she smiles more than any baby I've ever seen, despite her two older overbearing and terrifying siblings.

For Your Information

I have googled Jason. He is all over campaign pages, newspaper articles, and the phone number that is on the websites is the same phone number that I call him on. I then went and paid for a background check. His parents are who he says they are, his past residences are what he has mentioned. The church thing, we'll have to see about that. But just for the record, he hasn't proposed, I haven't proposed. When I said he is always the one that calls me, I meant that he calls me so much, I rarely have to call him! But I have called him many times. He doesn't have my address. I suppose he could get it if he did a background check on me. I think that's everything. Love you all.

How Do I Say It?

Sigh. I have butterflies in my stomach and I know what to say but don't want to say it but I do want to say it. I don't want to be preached at or told it is too soon, ect. ect., but I've signed up with LDSplanet. It's an online service. I've been a member for about a month. There's a number of stories I could tell already, but there is only one I want to tell, and his name is Jason. This feels so risky blogging about this, but I feel compelled. I might be making a mountain out of a molehill. It might turn into nothing, he might not be the guy for me, I don't know, but something is definitely happening. He's called me 6 nights in a row now. 6 nights! In a row! And it's always him that calls! And it's always 3-5 hour conversations. I'm not exaggerating. Okay, so now you're all dying, who is he. Okay. He contacted me. He revealed two nights ago the reason. I have a line in my profile that says, "and I'm very conservative politically, so if you are a liberal, don't bother." He told me that I'm prettier than women that usually think that way. He then compared me to Anne Coulter. He said, "Take Anne Coulter for instance, everytime I see her on TV I think, Anne you need to gain some weight, and I don't like fake blonds. She's a fake blond. I don't know why anyone would die their hair blond, when they're hair is brown. It looks terrible." Okay, so all of those words are just music to my ears. And then last night, when we were deep into politics, I gave my opinion on something, and said "of course I'm just a regular person, you probably have a different view" (he works in politics). He laughed and said "Rebecca, you are not a regular person. You are so not a regular person." I asked him if he meant with politics, and he said no, he meant in everything. I need to back up and tell you about him. He's from Pennsylvania. He's in Alabama right now working on a governor campaign, for Judge Moore, known as the 10 commandment judge. He's 36, he joined the church when he was 27, he's been engaged once, never married, no kids. His family are not members of the church and are a bunch of democrats still pining over Hillary : ) Because of his work, he can't go to church every Sunday. He says he wants to quit the rock and roll lifestyle of campaigns and settle down. He says this will probably be his last campaign and he might not even stick out the whole campaign. Of course the church thing makes me nervous, so last night I made my goals very clear. Meaning, even though my first try at marriage was a disaster in the end, I'm not giving up, and that I want to get married again, and that I want that to happen in the temple. He claims he wants the same thing, and thinks I shouldn't want anything less.

Sigh. My head is in a whirlwind. We email throughout the day, the past two days he's even called me during the day too. I think about him all of the time. I'm a lot happier. I'm more motivated, and get more things done. I don't feel so hopeless all of the time. I know I should "heal" with the Savior, therapy, and soul searching, but it is really hard to wait until all of that is done before looking for someone and liking someone. Am I crazy? I tell you, if we had spent all of this time together in person, as long as he bathes, and brushes his teeth, we'd definitely be kissing. I've only been divorced a little over a month, and I already like someone that likes me. Of course there's the whole meeting thing, and who knows when that will happen. There's so much more to say, I hardly know where to start. Is this a rebound relationship? Would I be like this with anyone who paid me attention? I'm praying more and reading my scriptures more so that I am close enough to the spirit to know if I'm doing the right or wrong thing. Of course the kids don't know anything about him. I'm not sure when I'm supposed to tell them. And who knows, this whole thing might be over tomorrow, even though that's very hard to imagine. Having him live so far away seems really safe, but Des keeps telling me he could show up at my door this Saturday. Of course I'll be in Salt Lake City this weekend, which he knows, so that wouldn't be very smart of him! He thinks Darin was abusive, and the only people who have said that have been my parents and siblings, and Elder Oaks (in a talk, not to me personally, obviously). He's revealed many flaws from his past(because I've asked him, the poor guy gets the third degree every day), so I hope he's being honest. If he was lying and trying to impress, I could think of a lot of things I would have left out if I was him. But don't get the wrong idea, he's awesome. Totally awesome, more awesome each day. He's funny, we laugh a lot. He's half Polish, and half Philippino, so he's always calling himself a Philippino Pollock. Are you sick of reading yet? The cat's out of the bag. I'm back on the market people.

Joining the Living

Holy crap I hate surgery. It is not for the faint of heart. Those old people that get to have one every few years, I feel your pain! And I might add, my surgery was very small. I was not put completely under. I cannot imagine if I was. Basically, I'm a baby. That's not exactly new information, but it has been confirmed. Then to add to the problem, I'm without nurse Darin. As big of a loser as he is in just about every area possible, he was fabulous in this area. Truly wonderful. So to add to the pains of surgery, I got to feel lonely all over again. And then when the kids came back from Darin's yesterday Anna says in a very excited tone, "You know Dad's friend Diane right?! Well she gave him so many birthday presents. All golf one's. So much golf stuff!" Mind, she has a grin on her face the whole time she is telling me this, and I'm thinking, "I wonder how many thousands of dollars it's going to take Diane to replace all of the golf stuff I destroyed." Then Aliese says with a not so excited look, "They're REALLY GOOD friends. They're on the phone all the time." She sighs and leaves. She's not dumb. She never has been.

So to fill you all in, last Thursday, I endured a uterine fibroid embolization. Basically, the surgeon went in and cut off the blood supply to the fibroid. Over time the fibroid will shrink and cause me less problems, hopefully no problems, and I still get to keep my uterus. And since you're all so confident I'm going to meet prince charming any day now and live happily ever after, I'll want that uterus. I really would love another baby. Sounds crazy after everything I've been through, but there you have it, I think about babies. Gracie is so old lately it's downright depressing. She wants to learn how to read. I ordered a packet of games that might be able to teach her to read. I might just teach her the way I taught Anna. It seems so much easier. The book I used with Anna is "How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons". We didn't get through all 100 lessons. She's a great reader, and the stupid public school system was much easier for Anna to navigate than it was for Aliese, and I attribute that to teaching her how to read.

I was in the process, and might start back up today, of compiling a blog of stuff to sell. I have so much stuff. I'm tired of my stuff. Too much stuff. Some of it, or rather most of it, is really nice stuff, but it is too much. I plan on moving into a small 2 bedroom apartment in March and taking as little as possible with me. If you know of any minimalist books that would motivate me, let me know. I want to embrace the concept of minimalism. You know, the Little House on the Prairie kind of life. One outfit for week days, one for Sundays. One dish for each person, one toy for each child. Doesn't that sound nice? Don't worry, I'm not going that far, even though the challenge is tempting. So much less to take care of.

One of the many miracles in my life as of late--we found a home for Rylee. Such a blessing. Can I just tell you all--I DON'T MISS HER!!! That's all I have the energy to say right now. Animal lovers are truly saints. I'm not a saint. That's about all there is to say about that.

I'm getting tired. I don't last for very long. My hands are a little tingly for instance. Why are they tingly? I haven't taken the wonderful Percaset since last night. I need to go. Love you all. Keep praying for me. There isn't a prayer said in this world for me that I don't need.