Almost immediately after that conversation – everyone in the car was stressing about parking or something else that was equally unimportant. I announced to everyone that I had an important message – I was from the future – and that everything was going to be ok – and not to worry. LOL!

Since that time, when I start stressing out – I’ve been trying to imagine an older, wiser version of myself with me – telling me how none of what I’m worried about is worth the energy. That everything will be ok.

I’ve recently seen the quote “Everything will be ok in the end. If it’s not, then it’s not the end.” I really like that one.

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Since I can’t talk about that – and really, at the moment there’s nothing to talk about anyway, yet – here’s weight-loss status update. My body took a two week hiatus from losing weight. Not me. My body. I continued to exercise, watch calories – and during these two weeks, I gained three pounds. Seriously? I have no idea what that was about. I was so frustrated I was ready to call my doctor to have them start running tests. And don’t say it was muscle – it wasn’t. I might agree that I could have been bloated from too much sodium. I was having those gazpacho soups daily for lunch. But according to my calorie log – that’s a lot of sodium. When I stopped having that soup every day – my body started behaving again and I’m back to slowly losing some weight. I started this journey – well technically at 158lbs – but shortly after beginning it went up to 159! (Grrr) – but I am now down to 151lbs. So either a 7 or 8lb loss in 2 months depending on how you look at it. That’s pretty close to 1lb a week which is the max I can loose at 1200 calories a day. Still doing Zumba – at least 2x a week, 3x week when I can. I’m now able to make it through the whole class without having to “tone it down” towards the end to make it to the end of class. I can go full steam ahead for the full hour.

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Last night I was at the end of my rope, and patience. I know he doesn’t have ADHD or anything along those lines – he is capable of sitting still. I’ve seen him do it at school. When he’s finished with his work, the kids are supposed to go to a quiet corner and read a book – which he happily and proudly does. I don’t get complaints from the teacher about him acting out – so I think he’s doing ok (although I will be grilling her next parent teacher conference on exactly how well he really is doing on that to make sure). So I turned to the all-knowing Google. “Kid never sits still” “Excessively active child” “High energy child” – the last one came up with lots of good hits. “High Energy Child” is apparently the key phrase to describe him – and he’s not the only one. Here is what I got out of the links I read:

1) Limit TV and Video Games. Big time. These will overstimulate him. Other kids get over stimulated, but not nearly to the degree a high-energy child does. So our new plan: I have a chore chart – when all the things on the chore chart are done he can either have ONE (and only ONE) hour of TV OR video games – OR he can have a quarter. (He loves to buy junky toys from those bubble-gum vending machines)

2) Did you see the movie Gremlins? I didn’t actually – but I know there was something about not feeding the things after midnight. Similar rules apply – with similar results when you don’t comply – but in this case it’s the TV and video games again. That hour of media entertainment? Not to be done before bed!!!

3) Redirection. This is where that chore chart comes in. Once he starts complaining about not having the TV and video games – I remind him how he can earn it for an hour for the day. Try to give him “jobs”. Keep him assigned to a task. If he’s idle – trouble will follow.

4) Whatever you do. WHATEVER you do! Don’t lose your cool. Getting angry will make things worse. It will make him amplify his hyperactivity and make you even angrier. You’ll begin a viscous cycle. That’s not to say don’t tell him to get off the furniture or don’t punish him when he refuses to listen. But all punishment and directions must come completely without emotion.

I’m trying to see the world through his eyes and it is helping me to understand how to deal with him. Imagine you have boundless energy… and then imagine there is someone there who is always trying to bring you down – make you go to sleep? How can you sleep when you still have enough energy to jump tall buildings in a single bound.

The good news is that he’s a good kid. He’s sensitive to others. (Well to the extent a 6 year old is capable of) He doesn’t get into fights. He has a lot of friends at school. He’s bright, creative, smart, funny and can focus on school work when needed. He’s going to grow up and be an amazing human being some day. If we can direct that energy to something positive, I can’t even imagine the things he’ll be able to accomplish.

We’ll see how the plan above goes as time wears on. It’s always difficult to maintain these things in the long term. I’m hoping we do, and I’m hoping it works so we can all live a more happy life together. It has been really stressful to say the least.

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But I do like looking back on life. So here’s this past month’s rundown.

My daughter is wrapping up her part in the local theatre/musical group’s production of Cats. She has an ensemble part – but really does seem to enjoy doing the shows. She wants to do the next show too – against my better judgement, I’m pretty much decided to let her. Her grades were hurting in the beginning, but she’s pulled them up (I can take some credit here too because I’ve been seriously on her case about keeping up) – she’s cooperated for the most part – so I think we’ll do the show. Cats has been fun for me too – the program requires parent volunteer hours and I signed up for makeup. I *love* doing facepaint/makeup – especially cat makeup. At the same time, it’s also crazy stressful as there are A LOT of kids in the show. There’s a bunch of us working on makeup – I have about 6 kids I need to do makeup for – but we only get a little less than 2 hours before the show to do it. For each show, I’ve had the kids waiting in line, waiting waiting waiting for their turn. I’m going as fast as I can, but I feel bad about making anyone wait for me! There’s three more shows left – I’m sure by the last one I’ll be so fast!

Zach just finished up his first soccer season. He is really good at it and I think we’ve got him convinced to do it again. I wish they had a spring session for his age group but they don’t (not unless we want to drive a few towns over each time!) So we’re stuck waiting for fall! I’d like to sign him up for another sport for the spring to keep him active, but I’m not sure what’s available and what programs are good. The ones through the town I wasn’t terribly impressed with. (The soccer program was great – it was through AYSO) There’s T-ball – but I really wanted something where he’d be more active (more than just waiting around for someone to hit a ball – or waiting for his turn to hit the ball… etc.) Flag football might be good if they have a group his age – but I wonder whether he’d be able to STOP himself from wanting to tackle other kids. LOL! Maybe I’ll just invest in a giant gerbil wheel… That would do the job.

Work is the same. Feast or famine. This month has been more on the “lean” side. But we’ll see how long that keeps up. (It usually doesn’t last) I’m thankful for the breaks anyway.

If you follow me on pinterest, you may have noticed a crazy amount of pinning recently for “doodles.” I’ve really gotten into this and started collecting inspiring doodles there. I almost always doodle while talking on the phone – next to my notes etc. but these would usually end up getting tossed in the trash. Some of them were actually kind of cool. So I got a few notebooks I’m solely dedicating to doodles. In fact, I’m thinking of buying a real “sketchbook” (since the paper in the notebook is ruled and isn’t the greatest quality) – maybe even pick up a few super fine point artist pens. I’d like to post some of the things I’ve done – but there always seems to be some little thing that bugs me about the drawing that makes me not want to share it. Sometimes, I just do a partial drawing. If I ever get anything that feels “complete” and “clean”, I’ll finally post it.

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1. One month later

When we moved here about 5-1/2 years ago, I always knew this was a temporary arrangement. I never intended to stay in Utah forever. When people asked me what I thought about living here, my canned response was “It works for us for now.” Over the past year, it’s been more and more clear that it was working less and less for us on so many levels.

I am not a very religious person, and I don’t believe in “God” per se, but the way things have been going, I feel that what we are doing is following a path that “something” laid out for us. Everything has fallen into place, like it was always meant to be. Like it was planned out that way long before the thoughts came to me. It’s a weird fence to be sitting on when I really don’t “believe.” Either way, I’m just following the road as it goes along. The decisions were tough because of the doubt, but once they were made, everything came together.

I’ve been looking at houses out there, and I’ve found a few things that were close to what I would like, but not perfect. This of course makes me question everything, and lets doubt creep in – but I’m also trying to hold onto the belief that this is all happening exactly as it is supposed to and no matter how much I worry about it – it makes no difference. It will all fall into place at just the right time, and not a moment before. It’s true – if the perfect house came on the market now, it would not be good – because we are not there yet, and can not buy it. So I have this crazy hope that just when I need the house, it will be there. And that may be the first day we get there, or it may be a few months from now. But we won’t be “homeless” forever.

The other thing I’ve been thinking about is how we will survive the next while… Let me paint a picture for you: my parents house is relatively small. Well, it’s a perfect size for them: a retired couple that occasionally has a visitor. Not really designed to hold as many people as will be living there very soon. A 1500 (or 1400?) square foot, 3-bedroom house for 6 people. “Tight” doesn’t even begin to describe it. We’ll be loading up their garage with all the stuff we couldn’t put in storage. We’re converting their office into a bunk bed kids bedroom, and of course Sam and I will be taking over their guest bedroom.

When I described the situation to a client of mine, he said it sounded like the premise of a sitcom. I totally agree. I really feel like I need to document our life there, because at some point (probably not DURING) I’m going to look back on that time and laugh at how crazy it all was. At least I hope so.

But above everything else going on right now is this huge anticipation – that this isn’t “just another move.” This is just the beginning of something huge. That for the past 5-1/2 years we were in limbo – we were in the “waiting place.” And NOW finally, stuff is going to happen. What that “stuff” is… I really have no idea. But I think it’s going to be great!

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A little? Wow. Maybe I when I tell stories of our adventures I go over the top with my descriptions, but still, I’d never think to describe that road as a “little” winding.

Quite simply, the road was terrifying. Now I understand why the t-shirts all say “I survived the road to Hana” – because just surviving that road is enough to brag about. Like “I swam in a river filled with Parana and sharks. And then just to make things interesting, they placed a hungry tiger on the shore.” Seriously, the road is nuts. It’s VERY winding, it’s VERY narrow. Some turns are so tight and so narrow, you literally have to hold your breathe as you make the turn praying that the person coming around the bend is far enough over.

This picture above explains why I would be concerned about that in the first place. The huge truck in front of us obviously felt the dividing lines between the two lanes was merely a “guideline,” and not something you really needed to pay attention to.

And with such a narrow, winding road, you’d think people would obey the speed limit. Oh, no of course not! Locals as well as tourists zip through this place like death is a paradise you can’t wait to see.

They also warn you that there is nothing from the town of Pa’ia all the way to Hana, so you better get a boxed lunch in Pa’ia so you don’t starve to death on your way. So of course we heeded these suggestions, but there’s actually tons of little roadside local setups that I would have loved to have tried. It makes me think that the hotel has some sort of deal with the “boxed lunch” place to send business their way. At one point, regardless of the fact that we had plenty of food in the cooler from Pa’ia, we stopped at a little local stand and picked up some of the freshest “Pineapple Bread” I’ve ever eaten. Actually, I’ve never eaten pineapple bread, and probably will never do so again, but that’s just because nothing will ever compare to how delicious this bread was. It was still hot from the oven, and just totally amazing. They also had little bags of fresh coconut. Seriously – how can you turn that down.

One of the things we were going to do, was listen to this CD that was supposed to be a “tour guide” for you as you drive. We didn’t listen to him very much. Although it probably would have been pretty funny to keep doing so. The drive was just so difficult that we needed to keep full concentration on every inch. The one part we did hear and are still laughing over is that he said that the road “used to be” terrible – full of potholes, but fairly recently (2004?) it was paved and widened. Seriously? If this road is wide NOW, I would hate to have seen it before!

The point of the trip, apparently, is not just to drive to Hana and back, but to stop at several locations along the way. In my mind, I pictured a decent sized pull-off on the road, or at least larger signage to indicate where you were supposed to go, but this was not the case. The pull-offs were mostly no bigger than a small ditch on the side of the road. For some of the stops, it required hiking into woods on a vaguely marked path. All that coupled with my severe car-sickness from the road, we didn’t stop much.

At one of the bathroom stops we found on the way (we were told there were NONE!) we looked at the list of “sights” to see on the road to Hana, and decided the one and only one we REALLY wanted to see was the black sand beach. So we headed straight there. It was incredible. There was a lava tube right near the beach, and the sand was truly amazing. All of it comprised of black sand and rocks formed by lava flowing down to the ocean thousands of years ago. I so wanted to take a sample back, but then remembered what someone had told us about not taking sand or rocks… something about bad luck and really with so much of our life up in the air right now, I need as little bad luck as possible. I don’t even want to think about tempting fate.

Coming back was a much easier trip, for me anyway. I had been so wound up and felt so sick on the road in, that I was completely exhausted and fell asleep for most of the trip back to the hotel. Probably made Sam’s life easier that way too. LOL!

If you do ever come to Maui, and have never done the drive to Hana, and want to… well, at least now you’ll know what you’re getting yourself into. LOL! I’m not sorry we did it, but I can’t see myself ever wanting to do that drive again!

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First the view is absolutely spectacular! And the breakfast, for some reason, I thought it was just going to be a continental breakfast: some coffee, a bagel, maybe waffles if we were lucky. HOLY COW the breakfast is HUGE. Made to order omelets. scrambled eggs. Hash browns, eggs benedict, lox, bagels, fruit, waffles, steamed fish, even miso soup! There’s so much I can’t even remember it all. Then for seating, they placed us right next to this koi pond that has a waterfall. It’s simply paradise.

In the lobby of the hotel, in the open air, there’s another huge koi pond with another waterfall, and birds that just hang out there: like swans, flamingos, parrots. Everything is just over the top beautiful.

We splurged yesterday and had a couples massage. Then we drove down to the Maui Aquarium. Again, expectations were moderate, reality far exceeded anything I could have imagined. The first few buildings were very cool, but what totally blew any aquarium experience I ever had out of the water was showing up in the shark building JUST as they were feeding them. OMG!!! They have a glass tunnel that actually goes through the tank so these huge stingrays, hammer head sharks, and tiger sharks swim directly over your head and around you. Just…. OMG!!!

If my vacation was over right now, I’d say we had a fantastic time, but there’s still more to come. Today we’re just going to play on the beach and go kayaking, and snorkeling off the beach, then tonight we’re doing a luau (yes, I know they’re hokey. I’ve still always wanted to see one) Tomorrow, the road to Hana in our convertible. Then later this week, we’ll take a snorkeling boat tour. Still not sure about the helicopter ride. We’ve been tossing the idea around, but with my fear of flying, it might not be a good idea. LOL We’ll see.

All the restaurants are crazy expensive. IF I had any regrets, it would have been to get a kitchen in our room so we could have made our own dinner one night. But otherwise everything is about as close to perfection as I could imagine.

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Yeah, no kidding. So much has happened in such a short span of time, I’m literally dizzy. Most likely from adrenaline.

So here’s the order of events:

First, we weighed it all out, and even though Portland, OR sounds like a nice place – the fact of the matter is that Sam wasn’t seeing a lot of jobs there. As well, I know even there, without family nearby, I wouldn’t be 100% happy. Whereas in California, there are more job opportunities and we have family nearby. My brother has offered to help us get settled, so all in all – this is a no brainer. We are headed to California.

The hard part was deciding when. Sam still has a job technically, but it will soon be ending. But they haven’t been really clear about when. At the same time, we can’t base our lives around them. Another factor is the kids. Rachel is FINALLY in a good school, with a awesome teacher – she’s doing really well in class – so I did think maybe we would wait it out this year and head out in the spring as soon as she got out of school… but… I have no idea what the market will be like in the spring. Right now, the market didn’t seem all that bad to me. At least not as bad as I would expect with the current economy and headed into the “slow” season. There were a few house sales right on our street… so we figured we’d jump while it was hot.

We did a massive clean up, and de-clutter, got the house ready to show, put it on the market on Monday. I figured we’d be sitting on the market for at least a month, maybe 2 or 3… We’ve had such amazing luck in the past. The two previous houses we’ve owned and sold, we had a buyer immediately after the Open House. I didn’t want to get my hopes up that we’d hit it a third time…. but we did. In fact, we BEAT our previous records. LOL! This time, the open house was scheduled for Saturday… but we didn’t even make it that far. We got a good buyer by Tuesday night. Seriously. AND, of course we want to make this buyer happy – but they want to move in yesterday. So forget about a lengthy packing and closing process – we’re all going to rush it through in a MONTH.

A FREAKING MONTH from today I will be in my car heading out to California for GOOD. I can’t even wrap my head around it.

I had joked that I wanted the house sold for my birthday. I think I need to be careful what I wish for. (Well somewhat) The other thing I was wishing for my birthday was an iPad. You can just imagine how much I’ve been drooling and pining for one… I wonder how anyone could have ever guessed it’s what I wanted for my birthday… well, that and my trip to Hawaii – which is the reason I really didn’t think I’d get the iPad too… but I GOT IT!!!!! And it’s everything I was hoping it would be. No birthday wish remorse at all. I totally love it.

So yeah. We go to Hawaii for vacation – Just Sam and me – then we come back and hit the ground running like crazy people. Pack. Move. Done.

Oh, where will be staying in the meantime until we get settled? Heh. My parents. You’d think when your kids turn 40, you’re free from them moving back in with you. Think again. And it’s not like I’m just bringing a load of laundry from College. I’m lugging a husband and two kids with me this time! LOL!!!

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The irony is that I’m not here to tell you that “… and NONE of it came true… everything was fine!”. Well, everything was fine, but that’s not the end of the story. The truth is that almost everything I dreamed actually came true. I did accidentally leave my computer’s power cord at home. I couldn’t find my laser pointer when I needed it. The wifi did get disconnected from my laptop in the middle of my presentation. Really, if you told me that all of that stuff would really happen, I would have run from the room screaming, called up Joseph Scott and told him to forget it, I couldn’t do it! In the nightmares, when all of these things happened, the world basically ended. My presentation was a complete failure and life ended there. Every night, in the middle of the night, I’d wake up, jot something down on a piece of paper I needed to remember so that I could prevent the catastrophe I had just envisioned.

But despite all these things coming true, life did not end. In fact, nothing happened. Thankfully, my battery lasted long enough to survive the length of my presentation. It did die eventually, but not until about halfway through the day – hours later. The wifi timed out on my laptop and disconnected, but I kept going even though the cool slide remote I had on my iPhone no longer worked. (In my opinion: a design flaw in the app to have it only rely on wifi and not bluetooth!!) The arrow keys work perfectly well to move the slides!! And the laser pointer I realized later I left buried in my purse so I just made do without it.

All the anxiety and thinking the sky would fall if any of these things happened, and even my desperate attempts to prevent them – they happened. When they did, there was a logical solution. And life went on.

I think I know I spend too much time worrying about what could happen. I spend too much time trying to plan for all conceivable contingencies. And the truth of the matter is that, when a problem is real, there is usually a solution at hand as well. I won’t say always. But usually. It certainly isn’t worth the time spent worrying about the “what ifs.”

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