Life's little Ironies

Why do these things happen to me?! I should be used to these highly ironic experiences, shouldn't I? I guess not... because they still freak me out.

This Saturday our Stake had a service project. Being the Activities Co-Chair for my ward, and Greg being on my committee, we went to do our part. The night before, I warned Greg that there was a chance that he met get to meet Mark at the activity. He seemed ok with that and I already had to start working through my breathing. Just the thought of them being in the same room was freaking me out.

So, we walk into the activity and go about building hygene kits and stuffing footballs (don't ask me on that one... ). Everything was going nicely until I noticed Greg had wandered off somewhere. Imagine my shock, surprise, and panic when I saw him over at the table chatting it up with Mark and some blonde chick. I literally had to leave the room for the panic that swept over me. Who is this guy? Why does he delight in torturing me?! I decide to "ignore" the situation and go back to what I'm doing. I then look up and Mark is standing next to me with his cheesey grin and Greg is back chatting with Katrina. Of course my heart skips a beat and I'm at a loss of what to do. Hello? I still love Mark. I still care deeply for him. I still want to talk to him and see how he's doing, really doing. But how can I do that without hurting Greg? Is it possible to love one person and be dating another? There should be some sort of law against that. Anyway, I don't know how to react so I just smile at him and go back to what I'm doing. Greg seems oblivious and is laughing with Katrina in the corner. Soon Greg takes off, goes back to the Mark and blondey table to say goodbye and leaves.

By this point I'm like, "Enough already!" and decide to confront the situation, so I go over and talk to Mark. I have no idea who the blonde chick is but I have my suspicions that she's "that girl". Mark and I chat for a bit and then I turn to her, Jana, and chat about random things with her. After an acceptable amount of time I declare that it's time for me to leave and as I start to walk away, Mark puts his arm around my waist and asks, "So you and Greg, huh?" I nearly chocked. I could feel my face going 70 shades of red as I stumbled my reply, "Uh, ya, I guess. It's not really public knowledge, but ya, I guess." It certainly isn't public knowledge and it wasn't my intent for Mark to be apart of the select few who knew. Then I countered with, "So this (pointing to Jana) is her?" To which he sheepishly grinned and said yes. Jana and I, then, cordially introduced ourselves, at which point I declared that this had been awkward enough for the time being and that I had to go. We all laughed and I left with a hell bent determination to find out how the crap Mark and Greg knew each other.

It seems Jana and Greg's older sister are best friends... old roommates. Greg's known Jana for years and a few weeks ago was his sister's 30th b-day party to which Jana and her boyfriend Mark were invited. I had also been invited, but I unfortunately couldn't make it because I was out in Chicago celebrating Shaunae's 30th b-day. Oh darn, that would have just be so fantastically awkward. I'm sorry I missed that. Anyway, so Greg and Mark met at the party, not making any connections about who each other was. A few days later Greg got a phone call from his sister about a conversation she had with her dear friend Jana. Seems she was remembering that Mark's ex-fiance lives in Greg's ward and wondered if Greg knew her. She thought her name was Michelle. "Holy crap", exclaims Kim, "that's the girl Greg's been dating!" Well, Kim relates this story to Greg and since Greg and Jana are also good friends he calls Jana and gets the story straight from her. Seems they are dating ex-fiances, isn't that funny. So then at the activity Greg, of course bee-lines it for Jana and Mark to "properly" introduce himself. I'm completely unaware of what's going on and being the girl that I am, am HATING Jana. Then I find out she's best friends with my boyfriend's sister. Awkward. Ughh. Well, Greg invited me to family dinner last night and so I'm freaking out because not only am I meeting his family, I'm also "oh you're that girl" to his sister Kim! Goodgrief! Thankfully, everyone was really nice and I introduced myself to Kim followed by a "so I hear we have mutual friends" statement. We then discussed the awkward situation and she was very nice.

I still feel woosy with it all. Couldn't I just have a clean slate and start over in a relationship where Mark isn't somehow not involved? Is it so wrong for me to try to get over him? To move past what we had? I'm trying to. I really am. But just like the kayaking experience, I feel like once again my life's affections are being toyed with. What the crap is going on here?! I'm so tired of drama...

Deleted Pictures

Along with my newfound desire to trust God as seen on my blog, I have also gone through all my photos and deleted the pictures of Mark. It's time I trust God and let go. I feel good.

Luck is Luck Whether Good or BAD

This week/month has been quite interesting. Two weeks ago Monday night around 7:15 pm we were hanging up clothes in our closet when I heard Kathy yell that someone hit my car. What I yell back??? I grab a shirt and throw it on and ran outside. Our neighbor across the street called Kathy that a kid riding a "Rhino" kind of an off road vehicle(ORV), stopped to look down at something then drove into the back quarter panel of my little car. We ran out there and Kathy Says loudly What's going on out here?? The kid’s mother was out there in her new Saturn SUV and yelled at us to “CALM DOWN!! IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT!! HE DIDN’T MEAN IT!!! SO JUST CALM YOURSELF DOWN!!!” It was a strange reaction to Kathy's question and her manner of stating the question. Kathy then said back to her don’t talk to me like that you have no right to talk to us like that. She needed to yell at herself. The lady then proceeded to call her husband to come deal with these angry people…. Wouldn’t you be angry if someone’s kid just ran into your car?? He was 16 not licensed neither was the ORV he was driving. I asked the father that weren’t those vehicles illegal to drive on the road, he said that since we live in a gated community it is Ok to drive those here, He should know he is the President of the Homeowners association. In the course of the conversation he mentioned it about 4 times. Our neighbor Jon said that it is Ok to drive golf carts but these are illegal on the streets. The father said those people have one and those over there also has one. Jon then said SO WHAT anyone else has YOU ARE the PRES. YOU SHOULD SET AN EXAMPLE. It was quite humorous; it was a good relief to a stressful situation. That night I called our insurance to get the claim started they were very helpful. Later that week we got a call from Brian, the father, that he thought that we could do this without involving the insurance and if we could take it to this one guy that he knows and try to get it fixed there, it the process he would tell the auto body shop that his car hit and he would have his insurance company take care of it. Ding Ding Ding… This is considered Insurance fraud. Sorry we will not be part of that I said. We believe in being honest in all our dealings with our fellow men. I also said that we are trying to teach our children to be truthful. With much backpedaling he agreed that wouldn’t be right….yeah whatever he was just trying to cover his rear. WOW what a great Pres. of our HOA. He then went into that he is a good Christian man and that he is going through a hard time his wife is divorcing him and he is selling his home before he looses it. And that we would be kicking him while he was down if we put it through our insurance and that they would end up suing him to get the money. So we agreed to go see this shop and to have an estimate done there. We really liked the Shop the guy was honest and really educated us. The first estimate was around $3,500 using used parts whereas the 2nd one was only $2500 and used new parts we called up Brian and told him the news. That it will be around $3000 I then ask that if we went to the shop he wanted us to go to I would want the money up front + a rental car. I then told him that if we went through our insurance company they might set up a payment program, if not I would want it up front. That was Tuesday we haven’t heard from him since. So Monday we are sic-ing the insurance company on him. Kick him anyways, Christ said to love everyone, this is true but not to let them walk all over you. So that is a big stressor going on in our life, but of course things can always get worse and they have. (We've ended letting the insurance take care of it and we're taking it the shop of our choice not his.)

Thursday evening was Enrichment night at church and Kathy was going to go. She had dropped Kylie off at piano lessons and Rachel and her crew at Activity Days. (She drives a route that covers most of the neighborhoods in our ward to pick up girls whose mom’s are working or sickly just so the girls can go to Activity Days.) After dropping them off she headed to Home Depot with Cooper to buy tiles for a couple of her projects that night. About 4:10 I got a phone call from her. She was crying and telling me to come right away that two boxes of tile had fallen off the shelf and landed on her foot and that it was lacerated and bleeding. I was in the middle of a pt at the time so I hurried and dictated her case and sped over to Home Depot. On the way I was nearly sideswiped by some idiot on their cell phone. I rushed over and found her lying propped against a pole with her foot extended covered with a teepee of paper towels and three Home Depot employees and a couple that had stopped to help her. Cooper was hidden under a shelf not wanting to come out, when he saw what happened to his mom he curled up in a ball hiding there telling people to leave him alone that he was grumpy. When I got there he finally came out. I saw the boxes of tile on the floor, they had been stacked improperly. They were 20 by 20 inch and instead of lying flat or even like a book on a shelf they were like a book’s front cover facing out toward the aisle. They reacted like a domino effect falling off the shelf and on to her foot while she was looking at some tile up above. She didn’t even see it coming. Most of the employees were just standing around wondering what they should do. I asked for their first aid kits and water to cleanse the wound. It hadn’t bled as much as I thought it should have seeing how deep it was however there was still a puddle of blood on the ground. It cut through the dermal layer exposing the underlying structures. I first looked to determine the extent of the damage seeing that there was no vessel or tendon damage at this time I dressed the wound and told them that I would be taking her to my office to have X-rays and to be stitched up. They were kind enough to help us to the car. And that is the last we have heard from them. Meanwhile X-rays were negative and a colleague of mine had the honors of sewing her up; 13 sutures across the top of her foot. Now 5 days later her foot still hurts and she can’t bear weight on it. Luckily I have a wheelchair from occupations past to help her get around. Well I took a break in writing this to take her back into my office thinking we would just be getting a shot of Rocephin (for an infection brewing) but no it just couldn’t be that. I decided to take more x-rays and well yeah she has a fracture. So we have a friend who is a podiatrist thank goodness. He’s going to take a look at the x-rays tomorrow. She’ll probably need a MRI to make sure there are not anymore broken bones and then they’ll put a walking cast or Moonboot on, hopefully. What a mess!!! I think I’d better take out a bigger life insurance policy on her, but on the other hand, I’m bound to learn everything I need to know about medicine from her. I think I’ll write a book someday titled, “Everything I Needed to Know about Medicine I Learned from My Wife.” I joke because I can but I’m amazed at how well she’s handled everything through the years. She takes everything in stride and endures the pain and there’s been a lot of it. She does keep wondering why the craziest stuff keeps happening to her but she can empathize with anyone’s pain. She needs a job as a patient advocate in post-op. Anyway, other than that we’re good. We hope everyone is doing well.

Love ya,
Steve

My first "healthy" breakup

Well, sorta. I mean, technically he broke things off with me. Which, surprisingly, was nice. He had also been feeling the weirdness and decided we needed to back off. We both agreed and then he was all cuddly. Ha! No post breakup make out for you buddy!

Things are surprisingly comfortable between us now and I'm excited to just be friends. I'll keep you posted.

My Dad the Hero!

Aunt Arlene found this in Grandma Fielding's life history. Way to go Daddy. If you can still remember the incident, fill us in on what happened!

Jacksonville, Ark.–U.S. Air force Captain Roger V. Barnum, son of Mr. And Mrs. LaRue Barnum, Rt. 1 Warden, has received the Distinguished Flying Cross for aerial achievement in Vietnam.

The captain distinguished himself as a C-130 pilot. When his aircraft suffered a malfunction upon landing, his outstanding airmanship enabled him to retain control and bring the crippled aircraft to a safe stop.

The captain received the medal at Little Rock AFB, Ark., where he now serves as an instructor pilot with a unit of the Tactical Air Command which provides combat units for air support of U.S. ground forces.

A 1961 graduate of Warden High School, he received his B.S. degree in business management in 1968 form Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, and was commissioned there through the Air Force Reserve Offices Training Corps program.

Captain Barnum’s wife, Karen, is the daughter of Mr and Mrs Herman J. Fielding, Star Route East, Othello.

A Very Happy 8-year-old...

The rest of the family is excited too. After sweeping the Philadelphia Phillies and the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Colorado Rockies are in the World Series. Yay!!! Brett has faithfully been watching the games leading up to the playoffs and the playoffs and grabs the sport section first thing in the morning. Even Karl, who has shown very little interest in sports is very into "Rocktober". We were out to dinner the other night and he was asking if there was a TV showing the game. There wasn't, so he continually checked the score on his Blackberry. Last night he got home from Matthew's football game at 9:30, promptly turned on the game and stayed up 'til it ended at midnight. Go Rockies!!!!

Living life or something that looks like it.

A coworker stopped by my office this morning and asked me to smile. Seems I looked a little too serious for his liking. He also said that if we're feeling weighed down and ho hum that we need to shake things up. Boy would I like to!

I've been feeling like I have a huge "pause" button on my forehead. I've known since the day I accepted this job that it was a short term gig for me. I thought something else would come up by September, at least that's the impressions I kept receiving over and over again. Well, September came and went. The only semi exciting thing that happened was I started dating a boy that came to Bryce with us. There's plenty of drama related to that, but the bottom line is... I'm just not feeling it. I freaked out for a good couple days, went to therapy and felt better, was finally my self around him, and he around me, but it's just not there. But, no harm done, he's taught me a lot about dating and getting back into that scene and being healthy about it, so I consider that a successful relationship. :)

So back to "work". I'm trunky in a big way. Having a non-committal relationship with work is really hard. There's always a part of me longing for something better, knowing that this isn't the right fit for me. Late last week an old colleague from Altiris called me about a position being created at the company he's with now and he was recommending me for the position. Based on his description I think it's right up my alley and might be what I've been waiting for. I'm super excited, but I'm trying not to be anymore distracted then I already am. The best I can do is keep getting the stuff done here that will allow me to feel good about leaving them. I certainly wouldn't feel good about leaving them with projects undone. They're so scrambled here as it is. Sigh... I just wish I knew for sure if this new job was it. I'm so done with the craziness here. That and I really don't want to spend Halloween in Minneapolis for some conference. Yuck.

Well, enough of my belly-aching. I took some awesome night time photos among the hoo doos in Bryce. I keep meaning to get them up. I'll put that on my to do list this week.

Love ya!
Meesh

Happy Birthday Grandma!!!!

Happy Birthday Grandma!!! We love you lots and hope you have a great birthday!!!