PLUG

For the last few months (four to be exact), I have only worn my left contact. My right contact ripped sometime ago and we could not afford to go the doctor. I kind of got used to seeing everything far away, but nothing up close.
I finally got to go to the eye doctor yesterday. He was a new one that I hadn't seen before. My mom referred me to him. Included with my new patient paperwork, was a letter that stated a patients contact fitting and placement would be charged in addition to the copay. We were looking at around $75.00 - 125.00. Before I even sat down, I was sick. When I got into the appointment, the doc asked me why I had only one contact in? I told him that my husbands business went down hill fast, we are constantly worried about our next bill and I could not justify a need for myself when I felt my son needed a home and food.
The doctor looked at me and said this, "I will just tell you flat out. Our prices can not compete with Costco on these contacts I am prescribing for you. I will write you a prescription, you take it there." WHAT? Aren't all doctors money hungry? He then proceeded to hand me a bunch of coupons and sent me up to the counter with my paperwork to check out.
At the checkout counter, the receptionist took the paperwork, pulled out her calculator and told me, "Looks like you owe us $20.00." It was at this point that I passed out!
Okay, I didn't really faint, but I could not believe that the doctor was so nice to little old me. I could have been lying. I could have just put it on my credit card. Instead, I used the last twenty dollar bill in my wallet and left the office grateful for a doctor who cares.
Here is my plug. If anyone in Salt Lake is looking for an eye doctor, give this guy a call. He is super nice, fast and has a great heart. His name is Dr. Gayer at the Ungricht Eye Institute.

Weekend Update

This weekend went by too fast. It started out with girls night on Friday. My sister in law, Holly, and I were able to go and see South Pacific at the Sandy Ampitheater. It was a bit too cheesy and over the top for me, but we decided it was a nice get away and think we may get season tickets, just to pamper ourselves occasionally. Maybe the next time we go, we will get to actually see 'The Sound of Music" like we intially thought. Thanks to Holly and Joyce for a night of free food, free plays and free lei's. It turned out to be just what the doctor ordered.
Immediately following the play, I picked Kellie up at my parents house and we headed to Heber. Darrel and Jaxon were already there waiting for us. We got in around 11:15 that night and then watched Penelope. What a cute movie. (I watched it a few more times before we headed home on Sunday.) We also hit the outlet mall. Darrel needed some new sunglasses. Turns out everyone was having back to school sales! I bought Jax three outfits at OshKosh for his birthday and I bought myself two pairs of pants at Old Navy's sale of the century. All of their pants were $12.00. That is cheaper than WalMart people. I was in heaven. After shopping we met my parents for dinner at Don Pedros and headed back to the cabin, to enjoy the swings and birthday cake. That night, we watched 21 and Definately Maybe. That was an awesome show too. Finally on Sunday afternoon we cleaned up and headed home, just in time to invite ourselves over to the neighbors.
We left the neighbors last night around ten and when we pulled up to our house there was some sort of huge bird flying above it. Darrel positioned the car well enough to shine our brights on it and realized that it was a white owl. I ran and grabbed my camera and took a picture of it in our tree seconds before it flew away. It was the prettiest thing I have seen in a long time.

To Mom With Love

Mother,
When I mentioned in the previous post that I was tired of life, I did not mean that I was planning on ending it in any way, shape or form. It was just a way of cleansing my palate.
Yours Truly,
Traci

Too Tired

I am having one of those days where you are tired of everything. Here is my official "tired of" list....
!. I am tired of paying someone else to raise my kid.
2. I am tired of having a broken computer.
3. I am tired of worrying about bills.
4. I am tired of doing laundry and dishes.
5. I am tired of working my butt off for nothing.
6. I am tired of living in Tooele.
7. I am tired of waking up at five in the morning to the annoying buzz of an alarm.
8. I am tired of watching the grasshoppers devour my pretty purple and pink gladiolas.
9. I am tired of being told that my education is far less superior than that of a graduate from the state of Nevada.
10. I am tired of being a grump.
11. I am tired of scrimping and saving everything I have so that I can keep my family in our home only to find out that someone else in the house just purchased a $300.00 toy.
12. I am tired of crying myself to sleep.
13. I am tired of being tired.
14. I am tired of life.
15. I am tired of complaining.
Take that. Ah, I already feel better about some things! I need a nap.

I'm Sick

A few years ago, we had a ward activity. It was a water activity at a church nearby. At the end, some of the kids were trying to dry off. One decided to lay on the warm cement behind a car to help keep cool while still drying off. The driver of the car did not know he was there and ran over his head, accidentally ending his life. We were sick then. I am terribly sick now too.
My friend ran by a few minutes ago to collect some receipts for reimbursement of a church activity. While outside chatting, we saw two police cars and an ambulance drive by. We ran out into the street and noticed an Explorer in the road. It was towing a ski boat. Well, it turns out the families little girl decided to hop on the hitch, without her parents knowing and they pulled away from the house. Our sweet little neighbor fell off. She was run over and has head injuries and chest injuries. We don't know much, however we just saw Life Light land at the hospital. Please pray for the Maxfield family. They could sure use it right now.
I think this neighborhood has some horrible luck. I am ready to move!

Solicitation

Here is a list of facts:
- I did not pack a sack lunch from home today
- I have not packed a sack lunch for myself since 9th grade
- My mom no longer cooks at home anymore (Hence no leftovers)
- Dad, Mom and Karin are at Disneyland right now salivating over their Churros
- Kellie is on a plane to D.C.
- My stomach is rumbling really loud
- My mouth is watering

All of these facts point to one clear equation. I am soliciting a lunch date. Anyone game?

The Unrein Update

- On Saturday, Darrel, Jaxon and I met up with Lynndi, Ryan and Bree and headed to the peaceful town of Morgan to shop. Lynndi made a deal with her husband, she would shop with him on Saturday, if he would let her work on her photography Sunday. So, we all headed to the infamous Browning outlet store. Did anyone else know that they do not sell guns there? Nope, they only sell apparel and camo vinyl for your vehicles. We went for Ryans sake, but left with two shirts for Jaxon and camo vinyl for the rear window of Darrels truck. NICE! - Saturday night we headed to Brigham City for dinner. I had personally heard that Maddox was to die for. So we wanted to try it. I was not impressed. One of my neighbors raves about the chicken fried steak and often drives down there to buy some to store in her freezer. NO.THANKS. Next time I want to eat some steak two hours from home, I am thinking I will head to Tepanyaki, Texas Roadhouse or Ruths Chris. Yep, that is a better idea.

- When there are barricades in the middle of the street, they are mainly to protect your vehicle, I am almost positive. My husband thought he was supposed to turn into the restaurant a little too early. Instead of getting back on the designated road, he decided to drive in between the barriers for about a quarter of a mile. Turns out there are big nails in there and one just happened to inject into our rear left tire. At this point, I would like to give a shout out to Savanna, Dan and family for letting us park in the Hansen Family Motors lot and change over to the spare. I would also like to give a shout out to Jax, Lynndi and Bree for keeping me and camera company on the detour. - I am still recovering from Girls camp. I can not seem to find enough sleep time. I have looked all around the house and have come up empty. I have tried to bribe the babysitters to let Jax stay up all day long so that he will sleep on the way home. It has not worked out too well yet. I need some new options. This weekend we have a big boating trip with the YM/YW from 7:30am-10:30pm on Saturday. Wish me luck. I may fake sick to get out of going!

- In Young Womens this week, our lesson was on Forgiving Ourselves. I decided that I would bring a picture of myself and tape it to the floor. I made up a sin, (I think I went to the Taco Bell drive thru, got my food and drove off without paying for it!) then went through the five steps of repentance. I did not however forgive myself so I took out of one of my insulin needles and used it as dart. I stabbed myself in the forehead with it. I then let the other girls in the class throw darts at my picture too. They made up sins that they could not forgive themselves for. After my face was covered with insulin syringe darts, I peeled back my picture and had a picture of Christ behind it, with the needles still attached, to show that we not only hurt us by not forgiving ourselves, but we also hurt God. Anyway, I just could not believe how much 12 & 13 year old girls love needles. They wanted to take them home. YIKES! I am beginning to really enjoy my calling and all of the nasty object lessons I can justify.

- Lately, our neighbors and good friends have taken us boating. We really enjoying being on the water and I have loved my new "modest" swimsuit. (None of the ones previously pictured!) Who knew that I could actually ski? I used to ski all the time in high school, but since then, I have had trouble pulling myself up. Turns out, I still got it. I just have to ski behind an older boat that doesn't go 0 to 60 in 2.5 seconds. That seems to rip the rope out of my hands before I even know what is happening. I feel liberated and it is grand. Alright, I think that is all for now. Until next time, suckers!

Good One, Moron!

I just received this email in my inbox. Are people really dumb enough to think this is logical? First, I do not have an account with Bank of America and second, despite what everyone tells you, I am not that stupid, morons! Anyway, check out the broken english. I thought it was pretty funny.

Our Valued Banking Client,
Bank of America always look forward for the high security of our clients. Some customers accounts have been accessed by unknown people. Bank of America in no way involved with this email and the web site does not belong to us.
Bank of America is proud to announce about their new updated secure system. We updated our new SSL servers to give our customers a better, fast and secure online banking service.Due to the recent update of the servers, you are requested to please update your account info at the following link:Click here

*Important*

We have asked few additional information which is going to be the part of secure login process. These additional information will be asked during your future login security so, please provide all these info completely and correctly otherwise due to security reasons we may have to close your account temporarily.
Thank you for being a valued Bank of America client.Security AdvisorBank of America

I'm A Survivor

I would like to take a minute to explain the last week, sparing no details, non-glorified and strictly true to the point of nausea. This is purely for selfish reasons. I need to have somewhere to referrence next year when I am once again pinned down and forced to make a choice. Go and die or stay home and croak. Hard to choose, isn't it!

Since I am a pessimistic person, we will start with the CONS of Girls camp (in no particular order....)
1. FINDING CAMP - Who in their right mind would find it fun to hike up a steep inclining mountain with all their gear in their hands? Not me. I am not a boy scout and there are good reasons for that!

2. BAGS - Being that I am a lady and once again, not a boy scout, I pack anticipating everything bad that could happen, will happen. I brought the least amount of baggage in camp and that consisted of a duffel bag, blanket, pillow, sleeping bag and backpack. If I knew that I would have had to backpack through China to find camp, I probably would have brought the clothes on my back and maybe some insulin.

3. LATRINE DUTY - You are telling me that even though this is called camping, we still have to take turns sanitizing the toilets, disinfecting the showers, emptying the stall garbages and removing all hard water deposits from the sinks? WHAT? Don't they have a relief society service project out there who could do this for us? Don't they have a camp host that follows you around with a hose? We ended up on Latrine Duty 3X in three days. Which in turn meant that I spent a good majority of the time, nagging the adults of tomorrow to keep scrubbing. NICE!

4. LIONS & TIGERS & BEARS, OH MY! - This was the opening speech this year when we got into camp..... "There have been three bear sightings in the area by other wards. We have caught two of them and they have been disposed of (DISPOSED? I thought that was something you did with old tablecloths, not bears.). There is still one out there which means there will be no deoderant, lotion, hairspray, bug spray, food or other scents in your campsite. Have fun and always flush the toilets for five seconds, do not flush tampons or pads and please only use three squares to wipe." Can you see why camp was not so appealing from the get go?

5. NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD - Our poor camp director had a bout with sleepwalking the first night we were there. After losing her in the wooded forest and relocating her, we grabbed a hold and watched as she physically punched her poor husband over and over. We held her down in a camp chair to prevent her from taking flight again and ended up getting no sleep what-so-ever.

6. EARLY TO BED, EARLY TO RISE, MAKES A MAN HEALTHY, WEALTHY AND WISE - False. If it made me wise, it is only because it helped me decide to never come back again! 5:00 comes early when you have been ransacking the forest all night on a treasure hunt for the camp director!

7. CERTIFICATION - Why in the world do you need to certify at camp? I think that all of the great knowledge of knots and first aid would have taught us a lot more, if it hadn't of been infused into our heads in 100 degree heat. Call me crazy, but I am under the impression that you could get that all accomplished before you and the whole ward head out into the great outdoors.

8. WALK OF TORUTRE - You can always tell when a woman was not present to help in designing. Take the campground for example. The stake camp and ampitheater were at the bottom of an incredibly steep mountain slope. The ward camps were at the top. We had to hike that lame hill around 4x a day. My shins ached, my butt was sore and my sideache pierced thourgh me like fire. So, I am out of shape, I get it. Now fix it or us old ladies are going to boycott!

9. LACK OF SLEEP - I blame this entirely on the lack of sleep, however, one morning while the annoying bagpipes were ringing in my ear (who wakes up to those anymore anyway?), I realized that a key piece of clothing was missing from my wardrobe. MY. PANTS. Being the thoughtless person that I am, I yelled "Where are my pants and who invited my husband?" Darrel was not at camp. The whole lot of young women from the ward were though and close enough in proximity to hear and make me the "butt" of all jokes for the rest of the week. Don't worry, I found them. They were nicely tucked under the air mattress.

There may or may not be more, but we will leave it at that. I did however enjoy getting to know all the young women in the ward, the newly formed presidency and all the stake leaders. I enjoyed the stake fireside. (Misty, if you read this, your mom made me bawl on hers!) It was so neat to listen to people from the scriptures who got to meet Christ and tell us of their experiences. I absolutely would not trade the world for the time us leaders spent in the tent, late at night, giggling from lack of sleep. Gaming around the dinner table at off hours during the down times was pure fun and brought back many memories of cups at the clogging competitions and spoons at young womens in my home ward.

I can now say that I am a survivor of Girls Camp. I am not sure if I will say it often, but be aware, I did it. The world is mine to conquer!