Wednesday, June 22, 2011

It's the little things...

Earlier today, Shaun did one of those things that bothers me. In a good way...but it still bothers me. We were IMing back and forth, and out of the blue he said "Maybe your surprise will come in the mail today."

Surprise? What surprise? Is it in a box? In an envelope? Was it expensive? Can I find record of it on our bank statement? What is it???

I'm impatient, therefore I dislike knowing there's some surprise in store for me. I have to know now, thankyouverymuch. Somehow I made it through the remaining hours at work and managed to not look like a crazy person when I walked in the door, but you better believe it was rough!

I walked into our room, and sitting on our bed was a familiar green, yellow, and pink box. I could rattle off a ton of nerdy facts about just exactly what is in the box, but just know that it's a Baby So Beautiful. A gorgeous redheaded doll in a pink-checked dress.

You see, when I was little I religiously saved my allowance each month until I could afford to purchase a Baby So Beautiful. They were the most beautiful dolls you've ever seen, and you'll never see two that are alike. By the time they quit distributing them (1996 I believe), I owned between 15 and 20.

Fast forward to this year, and those dolls were all carefully stored in tubs at my parents house. My Mom kept asking me to take them to my house, but I didn't really have any place to store them. Now it makes me really mad that I didn't.

As we were packing up everything that wasn't destroyed by the tornado, I realized that my dolls weren't anywhere to be found. In the midst of all this, it was the straw that broke the camel's back and made me cry like a baby. I'd been saving those to give to our daughter someday, and they were gone.

Shaun knew how much it bothered me, and a couple weeks later I got my surprise: a mint-in-box BSB he found on Ebay. It made me cry all over again. That one little doll made up for the numerous dolls I had lost.




It's amazing how sometimes the little things in life, like buying a doll for someone who's probably overly sentimental about her lost childhood toys, can make such a huge difference. I'm blessed to have such a great husband who realizes that. :)

[Note: I tried really hard not to be nerdy about this, but I'm about to post every nerdy thought I've had about my lovely new doll] HolycowIfinallygotmyredheadBSB! And she's mint in the box! And she has the same color eyes as me! Which means she has the same color eyes as my personal favorite BSB in my collection, Meagan! Can I take her out of the box? No, I won't. I want her to stay in perfect condition. But I waaaaaaant to take the hairnet off her hair so I can see her curls! No...I won't. She'll stay in the box. I am NEVER letting my daughter play with her. She's mine. No wait...I need to share. No I don't. Yes I do. No...she'll stay in a box. On a shelf. A high shelf. Yes, that sounds good. A very, very high shelf. This is a good plan. Ahhhhh, look how cute her chubby little toes are! Nope, my daughter is NEVER, I repeat, NEVER playing with her. What should I name her? This could take a while...

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Hey look, everyone! I'm grouchy!

*Warning* This blog is ridiculously long and probably only interesting to anyone wondering why I'm such a grouch lately. Just so you know. I promise I'll post something less depressing soon to make up for it.

I talk a lot, so I know it's hard for people to understand that I really don't verbalize anything about big problems very often. When I do talk about them, it's usually to downplay the situation, offer up humor about it, or let someone know just enough that they understand what's going on. Rarely do I share how it makes me feel or what the problem actually is. Today I'm offering a glimpse into what my life is like right now for the third reason I gave: to help you understand why I may seem a bit crazy right now. This isn't a comprehensive list, and some of the "big stuff" has been left off simply because it's not something I want to share.

First off, most of you know we're currently dealing with the fact that my parents home was blown away by a tornado. The only house I remember living in with them is gone. My Mom's wedding china is gone, along with a lot of their other belongings. A lot of things I was saving in hopes I could give them to my daughter some day are gone forever. It's hard to describe the feelings that go along with all this. From the outside it's easy to say "at least everyone's unhurt." Yes, that is an awesome thing, but there's also a whole mess of weird feelings that come in the aftermath that could definitely make life suck if you let them. (Not saying anyone is letting them. Just saying that those feelings exist. I know a lot of people on Mom and Dad's street are struggling even more)

Now for something that not everyone knows. A friend of mine died in the Chickasha tornado and I'm having trouble coming to grips with that. I keep expecting her to get on Facebook and say "just kidding guys!" When an elderly family member or an acquaintance from church dies, I can have peace about it. When a friend who didn't share my belief in the Savior dies it's incredibly hard to find any peace about it.

My stomach literally hurts all the time. When I wake up in the morning there's always a sense of dread because the moment I stand up the pain hits. Motivating myself to do anything but lay in bed is becoming harder. I know it's mostly "stress-related," but how do you reduce the stress causing the problem when there's no way you can block out everything occurring lately?

Things don't always turn out the way I'd planned. Actually, they never do. I know that ultimately that's a great thing, but right now we're in the middle of things that I never planned because they totally suck. A lot of the things I haven't mentioned are smaller than those I've listed and some of them are even bigger. The result of all this is that I'm constantly tired, stressed out, and grouchy. It's a daily struggle to not snap at people and it's hard to look interested in things that used to be fun for me. I'm so blessed to have a family that rallies so well in hard times. Especially Shaun. He's my rock, and I also think he's the keeper of my sanity. God has given me an amazing support system.