My Day...

This is MY cat. He is just the love of the world these days. He takes such good care of me and Chels. I just have to show him off a little. ISN'T HE STUNNING?!
And here he is letting Jesse know that there is NO WAY he is joining him in the backyard while it is snowing.

I'm just so grateful that the Lord gave us animals. Especially little kitties. I can't remember a moment in my life that I haven't been obsessed with them. We even have home videos of Chels and I pretending to be kittens when we were three years old. I just love them, what can I say?!

The Beginning of It All...

There is one day from my past that I truly believed changed mine and Chelsea's future as we would know it. We had just moved from our Grams' house in West Valley up to our new house in Cottonwood Heights. Though we didn't have much money, my mom somehow scrounged up enough money to pay movers for our big move (did I mention that my mom HATES moving, and as this was our third move in a very few months, she did not want to do the work again).

It was June of the summer before Chels and I would be entering 4th grade. My mom instructed Chels and I to go and play in the yard so as to keep out of the way of the movers. This was no problem for us because the yards that surrounded our new giant house were FUN! We were just laughing and playing when a lady squoze through a tiny crevice between a chain-link fence and a wooden fence. Chels and I said "Hi." And she introduced herself. She said "My name is Niki, what are your names?" We told her, and I am sure gave her an earful of information she did not ask for as well, and then she continued "How old are you girls?" We told her, and she said "I have a daughter your age that I would like you to meet."

She came back a few minutes later with Jessica in tow, and a hammer in hand. Chels and I bombarded Jessica with questions and noise while Niki proceeded to tare down a few planks of wood from the fence that lead into their yard. She wasn't worried about resale value, or appearances, she just knew that having that fence open would be vital to us becoming friends. And it sure was. I think I spent more time in the Ford's house while I was growing up then I did in my own.

I am so grateful that Niki did that that day in June so many years ago. Jessica has become a sister to Chels and I. We truly were and are a part of their family. I am also grateful that Niki was such a courageos woman. She did everything full-steam ahead. If it needed to be done, or if she wanted it to be done, she did it. No thinking or waiting, she just went right on and did it. I do not believe I would be the woman I am today without her influence. She taught me to be fearless, and most importantly, that I could do anything I wanted to. Whether it be sawing down a tree for hours on end to teach someone a valuable lesson, or any other thing that you might find amusing. I am so glad I had the opportunity of knowing her, and that I still get the pleasure of calling Jessica my best friend.

As a side note to the picture, that is truly the fence this story is about. Almost one year ago my sister Marissa moved back into the basement of our Cottonwood Heights home. I made Jesse take this picture with his phone. It isn't the best, but you can still make out the new pieces of wood compared to the old, weather warn ones that are original to the yard. I had to take a picture for memory's sake.

Beating Like a Hammer...

So for the last few days I am paniced about something. Literallly and truly. Only I can't put my finger on what it is exactly. I have a list of several things that I think could be causing it, but then when I really focus on one of those problems I realize I am not that worried about it. Let's tell that to my heart people. My blood pressure is up from the moment I start getting ready in the morning until about lunch time when I get to see Chels. I guess she fixes it when we go to lunch, because then I am fine. I just don't enjoy feeling like my heart is going to beat right out of my chest.
I had a lovely echo-cardiogram about a year and a half ago and everything came back perfectly clean (thank heavens). So it was determined that anxiety is the freakin cause. Thank you my friend Anxiety, I sure do like having you around to keep me up at night and freak out my heart. I do so enjoy having you in my life... Or maybe not... Just an FYI, nothing makes you feel more mortal then watching a picture of your heart chambers pumping blood from one quadrant to another. I do NOT recommend it, and it actually made me almost pass out. Which is funny because I have never been effected by medical stuff before. Guess it is different when it is your own body.

Anywho, this post was really for myself. I just needed to get it off my chest. Ha! Ha! No pun intended. I do feel a little better now. I wish Chels still made all of my decisions for me so that I didn't have to experience grown-up-ness. And thus anxiety. Freakin-A. I do believe having a dog would fix the problem entirely. :) YEAH FOR MY PUPPY! HOPEFULLY I WILL HAVE HIM SOON!!!! (must tackle selling the condo and finding a place to live first...)

Rock and a Hard Place...

Currently I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. I truly and sincerely want to move out of our condo. The reasons I want to move are as follows:

1. I want a dog (yes, this is the #1 reason I want to move, that might seem crazy to some people, but I just want my freakin dog already)2. I am sick and tired of our HOA. Do you have nothing better to do than survey what I am doing with my life people? Who cares if I have a charcoal grill on my clean patio? Why don't you go talk to the people with all the junk on their patios? I myself think that is much worse than a charcoal grill. Isn't that a fire hazard too? Sheesh.

3. Now is a good time to buy. Sell? Maybe not the best time, but if we can at least break-even then why not? That's what I say. Let's get a house, in an area we actually want to live in, while the prices are still reasonable.

I will stop at those three reasons. I could go on and on, but I won't. We know we could break-even on the sale of our condo if we sold today. There is a potential to make SOME money, but that might not happen. So I say let's list and just see what happens. If we don't get any offers, or we aren't happy with the offers, we can pull it off of the market.

Have I sold any of you on this yet? Cuz I certainly haven't sole Quenten on it yet. He thinks we should rent it out. But I say BOO to being landlords. I certainly don't want to be running over to the condo at midnight to fix something. I'm just saying. Leave me your vote on whether you think staying, selling, or renting is the best plan....

Parappah the Rapper...

For some reason when spring comes along I fully believe that I am a gangster of sorts. At least I get a hankerin' for some good old rap music. Is that strange to anyone else? I guess I can't deem myself a gangster when I use words like "hankerin" and "good old." Too bad too, since I think I would make a pretty good one. At least I would be comfortable in my baggy clothes. So here's to my peeps on the West side... HAPPY SPRING! ENJOY THE RAP MUSIC!

Days Gone By...

There are some days that I miss being a veterinary technician more than others. The last few days I have been missing it terribly, so I have decided to tell you about one of my favorite patients. His name is Ben.

Ben is the only Kuvasz I have ever met. They are beautiful. large dogs. I kept hearing everyone I worked with talk about how much they loved a dog named Ben who boarded with us frequently because his parents love to travel (yes parents, that's what we call them in the veterinary world). Then one day I finally had to meet this infamous Ben. One of the kennel techs came into the general treatment area with the most beautiful white dog I had ever seen. I gasped, and said "WHO IS THIS?!" She said "Oh, this is Ben. Ben, give Megan a hug." And that he did. From then on, anytime I would see him I would ask him for a hug. And here he is doing so...

Oh how I miss working with animals. Everyday held some sort of stress for me, but then moments like this happened and I remembered all over again why I chose to go into the field. Animals are an amazing gift our Heavenly Father has blessed us with. I could go on and on about the amazing things I have seen and heard about, but I won't. At least not in this post. Thanks for reading my reminiscing.

From Russia with Love...

I had to go to Tampa last week for work. A trade show to be more specific. I am not a traveler, let's just say. I HATE FLYING! But, if I have my friend Zanex, I can somewhat manage. It just keeps me from getting hysterical, but I am still scared. Anyway, I don't think anything else could have gone wrong on our way to Tampa. They lost our most important bag (but luckily found it), we got lost on the 17 freeway changes we were supposed to take (thank you cell phone GPS system for telling us where to go about 2 minutes after the fact), and we got to our hotel at around 2am. And here is the best part...

Mike (my boss) and I got checked in and headed up to our separate rooms. We actually had the rooms right next to each other. Mike went in his room, and I went in mine. Well, I flipped on the light and started walking down the small hallway past the bathroom and to the bed. This is where I found a man, who was obviously startled out of his sleep, standing in front of me in his boxers and a t-shirt. That's right! To make things more fun, he had a very thick accent. I like to think he was Russian or German or something. Anyway, he said "This is my room 6-1-3." And I said "Apparently it is mine as well." And then I started laughing so hard I could barely breathe. I went out into the main hallway and knocked on Mike's door. He opened it to find tears streaming down my face, and laughter beyond control. He seemed concerned, and I was able to get out the words "there's a man in my room."

I went down to the front desk and told the girl there what had happened. She said "well according to my computer that room is vacant." I responded "Apparently not, unless you want to go tell that to the poor man upstairs that I just scared the living daylights out of!" She apologized and told me they had no rooms for me. So I walked next door and stayed in the only vacant room that hotel had for the night. Thank heavens they had one!

Marriott was very apologetic about the whole thing, they bought me dinner, breakfast, and comped my room at the other hotel for the first night. They also sent me away with a free night at any Marriott anytime. So there you have it. My best story from the trip. Sorry for waking you up that way sir, but maybe you should set the latch in all of your hotel rooms from now on to save from having this happen again... Hopefully you got a free room out of it as well. That's all I have to say about that.