Depressed

Like everyone else, I don't like blogging when things aren't great. But if I don't, I internalize everything and blow it way out of proportion.

I'm super depressed today. It's been slowly getting worse over the past week or so. I'm not sure what to do. Maybe I should go up on my medication.

I'm supposed to go to church in a few minutes. I've been dreading it all day. For some reason, when I'm really depressed, church is EXTREMELY stressful for me. Being around all those happy people that keep asking me how I'm doing really freaks me out. Sometimes I will even have minor panic attacks during Sacrament Meeting.

Mitchell was scheduled to work this morning/afternoon for some stupid reason. Which means I have to wrestle with Joseph on my own and I won't have his support in Nursery. There is only 3 of us with about 10 or so rambunctious kids (at least 3 need special one-on-one attention to survive the 2 hours) and without Mitchell it will be 2 of us. I regret that I have little confidence in our new leader. It took her 2 months of spending Nursery with us every week before she even remembered who we were. Even now if I call her, it takes her a few minutes before she remembers who I am.

Basically, I'm not ready or excited about the rest of this day. I just want to stay curled up on the couch all day long and maybe eat some chocolate.

Herb Class

Yesterday, I went to a Relief Society Activity that was about growing and using herbs. It was good and bad.

The Good:
The sister who taught it made some awesome recipes using fresh herbs. We had crackers with Artichoke-Herb Cream Cheese spread, cantaloupe with a mint-citrus dressing, shrimp with cilantro-mayonnaise dip, and chocolate mint-infused water. It was all so delicious. I learned a lot and I got to bring home a little basil plant and a tomato plant. Now I just have to get pots and soil for them.

The Bad:
The class was during the time Mitchell is at school, so I had to bring Joseph. I found out when we got there that children weren't really invited. At first he was really good, but then he got bored. He was crawling everywhere, trying to get into stuff, and generally distracting everyone from the class. I had to go into another room for a little while because he was just so distracting. I felt really bad about it. But what else are the young mothers like me supposed to do? Not go to any classes? We have a lot of moms like me with young kids, but all of us have callings in Primary, and everyone in Relief Society is past the stage of having kids younger than 13. They seem to frequently forget what it's like for the rest of us. I can't get a babysitter when they have the class at 1 in the afternoon because everyone is in school at that time, except Joseph. They almost never have babysitting available at Relief Society activities, even though the Stake President has told them to a few times. They keep saying they'll do it, but they don't. It's really frustrating. Hopefully, my new ward in Provo will be better about this.

Old St. Patrick's Day Pictures

I don't have anything new to post about, so I'll post some old pictures.

Mitchell's St. Patrick's Day milk. He put green food coloring in it.

Joseph in his green shirt with his green milk. It's kinda hard to see, but I let him have green milk all day. He didn't really notice any difference, but it was still fun.

Giveaways!

I never do this, but I'm posting specifically for the giveaways on Cardigan Empire and Tatertots and Jello. I've been dying for a look book, but definitely can't afford one right now. It would be so awesome to actually win something because I NEVER do.

Early Morning

Mitchell had his friend, Peter, stay over last night to help him finish his cartoon for school. They were up until extremely late (I don't know the exact time) recording voices and sound effects. Lately, Mitchell has been sleeping on the couch and Joseph stays in the bed with me at night. It actually works out well because Mitchell prefers the couch, he thinks it's more comfortable and I'm not on it moving around and touching him. But since Peter was here, he slept on the couch. Mitchell slept mostly on the end of the bed last night, on my feet. It was an uncomfortable and long night. Mitchell had to go to work at 6 this morning. Peter woke me up at 7 wondering if he could take a shower. I wasn't planning on having an overnight guest, so we don't have any clean towels. He just went home to shower. But Joseph woke up because of the noise. I was totally hoping to get 2 more hours of sleep. Oh well, now we're awake and moving. Maybe these extra 2 hours will help me get some important stuff done.

Nightmares

I have been having nightmares almost every night, it seems. Saturday night I watched a few episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 1 (it used to be one of my favorite shows) and then I had nightmares all night. So I guess I brought that on myself. But last night I was having nightmares again. They were about everyone hating me when I get to Provo. And by everyone, I don't mean my family because I know you won't hate me. I mean all of my high school friends that are now going to BYU. My last year in Texas before I moved out here, I turned into a total jerk. I got a boyfriend and thought he was going to be the one I married. I stopped hanging out with my friends and I treated them all very rudely. I'm worried that when I get to Provo, none of them will want to try being friends again. And so I'm having nightmares about it. The only thing I can really do is wait and see what happens.

Why I'm Feeling Depressed

I figured out why I've been feeling depressed. It's because I'm stuck at home ALL the time. I usually only leave for church (where I spend most of it with small children incapable of intelligent conversation) and to go grocery shopping. And even when my husband is home, he is so insanely busy with school projects that I can't really talk or hang out with him. I really don't have any friends here in Virginia Beach and no one that I do know even lives close to us. It sucks having such huge ward boundaries. Most of the families with children Joseph's age live about 15-20 minutes away (driving). Mitchell graduates May 18, so I'll have more time to spend with him, but he'll still be working 50+ hours a week at his 2 jobs. I seriously cannot wait to get to Provo where I'll finally have friends and family to hang out with. And if we live in married housing, there will be lots of families with children for Joseph to hang out with. Only about 2 more months. I hope I can make it.

A Bit of a Slump

I've been feeling a little depressed and irritable the past few days. I think it's just hormones fluctuating and such from the pregnancy. Even if there's a valid reason, it's still annoying, for me and for Mitchell because he has to deal with my crankiness. I'm going to get out of the house and get some errands done, so maybe that will help me brighten up, although it looks like today might end up being rainy and I HATE running errands on rainy days. Man, this is turning out to be a depressing post.

So here are some funny pictures of Joseph. I believe this is actually Valentine's Day. He grabbed a pink, shimmery makeup stick off of the counter. I didn't think he could get the lid off. Then I found him like this. Teeth, lips, and hands covered in pink shimmery makeup. I learned from that experience.

Last Night

Well, I'm a little sad. Last night, Sister Julie Beck, the General Relief Society President, was here and gave a special fireside. Joseph decided to get ANOTHER ear infection and Mitchell had to work so I missed the meeting. It would have been so great! I bought myself a big box of Krispy Kreme donuts to enjoy. I spent the evening watching old episodes of Project Runway and eating donuts. I still have plenty of donuts left, so I'm excited about that. I can't eat 4 at a time like I used to in Seminary, now I can only do 1, sometimes 2. That makes a box of a dozen last a long time. And cake donuts don't get stale really quickly.

Middle Names Part 2

First, I want to thank everybody for their suggestions. It's fun getting so many responses. :)

Pam - Feel free to use Annabelle Ellis for a book, if you want.

Mom - I already want the name Emma Katherine for another daughter.

I think I've found the name that I want. It isn't one that was suggested. Actually, many that were suggested have already been "No'd" by Mitchell. I've decided I want to name the baby Anne Michelle. Mitchell says it sounds to much like Mitchell and we might as well make it Mitchell, but I told him I don't care. I just have the feeling that it's her name. She can just be named after her dad with the female version (although, that's not why I picked it, I just thought it sounded nice together).

Pasta for Lunch

Joseph decided that he was done with his pasta, so he put it away.

A Posting of Pictures

Joseph loves snuggling his stuffed animals. Those are 2 of his favorites. He woke up and crawled into his room to play. I heard cute little noises coming from there, so I looked in and saw him snuggling his little friends. He makes cute, squeaky noises when he's snuggling them.

My new haircut! It's a weird angle that Mitchell took it from and my face looks greasy, too. But my haircut is amazing! I love it. It's the first haircut I've had in almost 2 years. It was so nice to get all the dead ends cut off. I went to a salon that's really close to our house. When I walked in, about 20 black ladies were staring at me as if to say, "What do you think you're doing in here?" I stayed and ended up getting the best haircut I've ever had. She even curled it for me!

Modeling the yoga pants Mitchell got me for our Anniversary. I love them! I would wear them everywhere if I could.

Mitchell with his Anniversary present from me. It's a towel. He laughed so hard when he opened it. It's the perfect gift for him. We use very unconventional terms of endearment for each other, including Butt Face. Mitchell's family hates it, and the funny thing is I don't remember why we started doing it, but we have fun with each other and it works for us. We're starting to stop, though, because we don't want Joseph to think it's okay to use those names with other people. I know it's weird. We ARE weird.

My Biggest Regret and Greatest Desire

I am not feeling very happy this morning. My dreams last night have put me in a sort of depressed mood. On a regular basis, I have bad dreams about my self-perceived failure to get an education. In the dreams, I am usually at a school with an extremely heavy load, but I only go so some of my classes and I never do any homework. I'm also usually repeating my 12th grade year in high school.

My dreams are a skewed version of reality. I was homeschooled my senior year because I was having multiple major surgeries that made it impossible for me to leave the house. I didn't even do very much homeschool work because the combination of the healing process, the pain, and the drugs made me very tired and my brain very slow. I got my GED when I was finished with the surgeries. I didn't have any trouble with that at all. But school has always been very important to me, so I didn't ever feel like I really graduated. When I was finally done with all the surgeries (it nearly 3 years), I decided I could try to do some college work. Popi gave me money to enroll in some online BYU courses. Stupidly, I chose 4 very heavy classes. 16 credits after 3 years of no school is not a smart idea. When I started the classes, I was staying at my aunt's house in Reno. Those 2 months are the most serene and peaceful of my whole life. I was doing great on my classes and I felt so good about them. Then my life got crazier than it had ever been in my whole life. Within the next year I: had my wisdom teeth out in 4 separate and painful appointment, got dry socket and an infection, got engaged, moved across country, got married, got pregnant and ridiculously sick with the morning sickness, moved across country again, became really depressed, and had a baby. Because of all the turmoil and upheaval, I didn't finish my classes. It has become one of the things I most regret in my life. I'm constantly dreaming about that failure.

Now I have a 1 year old and I'm pregnant again. I feel like it will be a decade or so before I'll finally have the chance to go to college. The hardest part is that going to college was one of the biggest dreams I had growing up. I miss learning so much! I feel kind of stuck right now. I thought about doing one of the free BYU courses, but I can't afford to buy the required reading. I sometimes get jealous of Mitchell because he's going to school and having a great time learning all these things that he's always wanted to. He gets jealous of me because he's so busy and I'm not at all. I don't know what to do with myself. My brain feels like it's starving.

Book Reviews

I'm going to review my first 10 books, so that if anyone is interested they can read them, too.

1. The Fellowship of the Ring - Recommended: Yes. I really liked reading this. I never attempted it when I was younger and finally decided to. I liked a lot of the stuff that wasn't included in the movies. I'm struggling to finish Two Towers, though (I've been working on it since January). I always have a hard time with the movie, too. I think that the part with Sam and Frodo travelling is so boring.

2. Pyramids - Recommended: Yes! I LOVE Terry Pratchett. Mitchell introduced me to his books when we got married. He's one of the only authors that Mitchell will read because it has to be really captivating to get his attention. Terry Pratchett is sarcastic and cynical in a hilarious way. His books are parodies of our world and they are so great. I recommend starting with The Color of Magic first because it is the first book. And just like Harry Potter, the first 2 or 3 chapters can be hard to get through, but once you do, it's worth it.

3. Enchantment - Recommended: No. It was an interesting retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story and I liked that part. The reason that I don't recommend it is 1) the language and 2) lots of inappropriate parts, to put it delicately. I think it ruined the book even more for me because I know that Orson Scott Card is a member of the Church. My sister-in-law actually works for him and is best friends with his daughter. She's gone to Sacrament Meeting with him! He should know better.

4. A Telling of the Tales - Recommended: Sure, if you like fairy tales. It was a lot of short stories about different fairy tales and tall tales. I like the style of the author. I thought the Sleeping Beauty re-telling was funny. And I really liked reading the stories about Paul Bunyan and John Henry.

5. Spindle's End - Recommended: Yes. It was great! I just really liked the way it was written. I liked the way that magic was portrayed. I liked the ending.

6. Bobbi Brown Beauty - Recommended: Yes. It's the first of her books, and if you were only going to read one, I'd recommend the most recent one, but it's still really good. It has a lot of tips and tricks that the other ones don't have.

7. Never After - Recommended: Yes. It was hilarious. It pulled together many different fairy tales and put funny spins on them. The only part I didn't like was the names of the characters. Many of them seemed like tongue twisters. Even if I'm not reading it out loud, I'm still reading it in my head and I don't want to constantly stumble over names.

8. Kissing the Witch - Recommended: No. I didn't like it at all. I don't even know why I finished it. It was interesting because the author tied together many different fairy tales, but other than that I hated it.

9. Untold Tales - Recommended: Yeah. Another collection of short stories. All of the fairy tales were given a funny twist and then tied together in the end.

10. Bobbi Brown Beauty Evolution - Recommended: Yes. Her second book. I like that she includes a chapter for all the different decades of ages, all the way up to 70 years! And she has a good chapter on pregnancy.

Joseph is a Rock Star

Joseph LOVES to dance. He also loves rock music. Since before he was born, that has been his music of choice. He used to dance in my belly when Mitchell would play his music. Yesterday, Mitchell was listening to something and Joseph started dancing all crazy. It was really cute.


Some of his favorite music includes (Don't feel obligated to watch all of these. I know that this is not the musical taste of many of you. Joseph has his daddy's taste in music):

Yngwie Malmsteen

Steve Vai

Michael Jackson (his favorite is Rock With You, but I can't get a video)

Queen

Deep Purple

and Europe

Triple Threat

Yesterday was Easter, General Conference, and our 2nd Anniversary! Mitchell said it was a triple threat. I'm going to separate each part to make it easier.

Easter:

Mitchell had a basket set outside the bedroom door and eggs and things hidden around the room for Joseph when he woke up. He had a great time finding the eggs. He was shaking them and then figured out how to open and started throwing the candy around. Later in the afternoon, I fell asleep without picking up all the candy and he figured out how to eat it, so all evening he was on a major sugar high and crawling around the house like a maniac. I had to give him a bath because he was so sticky. We had lunch with Mitchell's mom and sister between sessions and it was really nice. It was a really good Easter. One of the things we got Joseph is a board book of the first Easter. It's really beautiful and it will be wonderful to read every year.

Coming out to find his sheep and basket.

Finding his Easter book.

His first egg.

Trying to pose with the monkey that Grandma Pyle gave him.

2 more eggs.

General Conference:

We went to the church to watch the first session. It was so wonderful. I think my favorite talk was President Uchtdorf's. I also noticed that many talks over the weekend included a lot about the importance of families, teaching your children, and being a good parent. I liked that. My family is the most important thing to me. We had to leave towards the beginning of President Monson's talk because I suddenly started having a really bad allergy attack and my throat was swelling up. I still don't really know what caused it. The 2 Benadryl I had to take kicked in when the second session started, so I unintentionally slept through the whole thing. We'll watch the talks we missed as FHE lessons.

Anniversary:

We like to follow the gift list for anniversaries just because it makes it fun. The 2nd anniversary is cotton. So Mitchell got me 2 pairs of Victoria's Secret yoga pants that I've been wanting. They are black with a color on the waistband; one pair is hot pink and the other is purple leopard print. I love them, I'm even wearing a pair right now. They are so comfortable, too. For some reason, the gift I got him wasn't shipped until 3 days after I bought it, so it's not here yet. I'm annoyed because I payed extra so it would get here in time. I'm probably going to call and get my money back. I'll post of picture of it after he gets it, in case he saw my blog beforehand. We broke the Sabbath and went out to eat dinner together. We went to Yukon Steakhouse, which is a place his dad used to take them on some Sundays when he had them for the weekend. We had a good time and I was glad I didn't have to cook because I was still out of it from the Benadryl. We watched a movie together when we got home. It was a really good anniversary. We always have so much fun buying each other gifts. I know we'll have fun next year, too. And maybe our anniversary won't be on a Sunday.

Hide And Seek

This is Joseph's favorite way to play hide and seek, with Daddy's hats. Once, he put it on and then started crawling around. He ran right into the closed bathroom door. He was surprised, but started laughing because I was laughing so hard.


He will also go sit behind something and then lean out and smile at me and then hide again. It always makes me laugh. I think he has the cutest smile ever, it's very infectious. If I'm in a bad mood and he smiles at me, it always makes me feel better.

Middle Names

I am 80% sure that I am having a girl. It's just a feeling. I knew Joseph was going to be Joseph from the very first of the pregnancy. I knew he was going to be born on the 16th nearly a month before he was born. And at the beginning of my labor, which was around 13 hours, I knew that he would be born around 4 AM (4:46 AM). So, I'm trusting my feelings for now and thinking that this baby will be a girl.

I already know that I want her name to be Anne. I've known that I would have an Anne since Mitchell and I were engaged. But Mitchell doesn't like the middle name that I wanted. I wanted Cordelia, but Mitchell and his brother, Ross, say it sounds like cornucopia too much. So I have no middle names. Mitchell wanted Annabelle, but we determined that Annabelle Ellis sounds awful.

Anyone have ideas?