The Scampering Horse

Bad days are bad. This is a post about depression. I am going to talk about how I have it, what I feel like in the lows, and what I do to make it through. I am also going to give a some suggestions to help support people with depression. Depression isn't who I am. I am fine 80% of the time. I don't even have to worry about it, except to avoid triggers. I struggle the other 20%. I lose 1%. If I put that into a calendar year, I have 3 or 4 bad days a year.  If you've met me, you might not even realize I have depression. Probably not. It is hard to tell what is going on in someone's head unless they tell you. I am telling you about me. Some people can probably relate, but depression is going to be individual as well. I have 3 bad days a year. Other people have a lot more, some will have less. Most of the time, depression stays at a distance and I live. I take my kids to the zoo. I wash dishes. I prepare meals. Then, I can feel it creeping on. Like a dista...

I have recently decided to try contacts. It was a casual decision. "You know, it might be nice to be able to see while I play soccer." My vision isn't so bad, but I need glasses to drive at night or I feel like I will die. I needed them in college when I sat in the back of the lecture hall.  I can't really see in movies without my glasses. It is nice to see. So, contacts. They s eemed pretty easy. A lot of my roommates had contacts. I have a couple of sister-in-laws who have them. I've seen the little ketchup like tube of saline solution next to those tiny twisty contact sized tupperware sitting on the bathroom sink. No one in my immediate family wears contacts. I was so nieve.  Contacts are like bludgeoning your eyes with your own finger. It is not intuitive. First the eye doctor stuck his scratchy fingers into them. My eyes. I know because my eyes felt like they were being rubbed with cold sandpaper. Three times. The first pair were too blurry and d...

I think 10 people read my last post before I rashly deleted it. It was a bit ranty. I apologize. I feel less ranty now. Let's see if it holds, shall we? Living with children is one of the things I try to do. I try to exercise with them. Eat with them. Do things together that we both enjoy.  I want to have one life that my family lives together. I am not the best at this, but it is what I try to do. So, I try not to watch TV shows that I can't watch with my children. This limits what I choose to see. I basically watch a lot of reality talent based competition shows. We like Phineus and Ferb. For meals, it means I eat a lot of oatmeal, potatoes, and lentils. Everyone from 10 months up can eat those things. For exercise, I play soccer at an indoor soccer league and my kids run around and my baby cries in his stroller. I call him my secret weapon. He is distracting, but not to me. I am immune. At home we do some crazy yoga and have dance parties. We go to the zoo a lot. I lo...

Last week we had a trunk or treat at my church.  Everyone dressed up in costumes and we ate chili dogs and salad.  There was a fun carnival, and face painting, and friends.  My family dressed up as characters from Peter Pan.  My baby was Peter. My two year old was the most lovely Tink ever to walk the cultural hall floors. My five year old was the politically incorrect Indian girl, Tiger Lily.  My six year old was Wendy Darling, and she kept forgetting who she was in her blue dress and curly pony tail. Ian was Captain Hook, or at least some sort of pirate.  I was an anorexic Smee. (My costume didn't get as much attention as the other ones, so...no stuffed belly). It made all my family themed costume dreams come true. Overall, I had a great time with friends.  My girls loved filling their bags with candy.    But, something bad happened at the party.  I was in line getting my chili dog, holding my baby in one arm, carrying a paper plat...

Ian is taking a CPA exam right now.  It is the one he took a few months ago and missed passing by one dinky little point. I thought I would, in honor of this occasion, share a few fun facts I've learned about CPA exams. There are four exams.  FAR, BCS, AUD, and something else.  The AUD stands for auditing.  I don't know what the other letters stand for.  He passed audit.  Today he is taking one of the other ones. Once you pass the first exam, the time starts ticking.  One year to pass all the exams.  People have exams they have passed expire all the time because they don't pass them all in the allotted time. I sure hope that doesn't happen. Each exam costs about 200 dollars to take. There are four of them. It is likely that an individual will need to take one or more exams multiple times. One must score a 75 or higher to pass.  The 75 is somewhat arbitrary based the curve of the people who take an exam in your window and such and such...

I have a bad case of the crankies.  I thought it would get better, but its been going on three weeks now. Cranky. It means that I get impatient. Impatience leads me to raise my voice, and become blamish. It is not a pretty sight. Especially if I am looking at you with my blamey eyes. Sorry.  If that happens, sorry. The day goes like this. I wake up. Earlier than I would have liked. After a night tending my baby who has become insistent on nursing frequently, and he has a cough, so I am trying to keep him hydrated, so I don't sleep well. Then I have to wake up. To kids. They instantly need stuff. Diapers changed. Then, two of the kids need their hair done, their cereal poured into dishes, and their lunches packed.  They also need reminded to get ready. Keep moving. Keep getting ready until you are ready.  It is a challenging concept for young sweet minds. Then, Ian leaves for work, and I am in babyland. Babyland is great for me for a few hours.  We ...

Dear Balloon Fiesta, I love you. And I hate you. Mostly, I love you. Watching hundreds of hot air balloons floating into the sky is magical. Really. It thrills my to my core.  I think of all the people who learned how to pilot the balloons, so many dreams fulfilled. And the coordination to get them all up in the sky of Albuquerque at the same time, and it sings to my heart. So, I came to see you Fiesta.  Up close and personal. Thursday morning. I was there before the sun came up with my four children, so we could watch the glowing dawn.  Like giant mushrooms or jellyfish glowing against the horizon. You didn't glow. The wind? I came, and brought my children. Four of them. Every single child I own. I woke them from their beds and layered on two pairs of pants, gloves on each of their hands, and took them on a bus to you. In the dark. On a bus. Without bathrooms. The ride was long. Especially since I seemed to have the bus driver set on taking the route as...

I've had a bunch of friends take their kids to California lately.  Lego land, Disney Land, Harry Potter Land. The beach land.  You know, awesome vacation stuff. I am a little jealous. Ok. I am totally jealous. I want to be you. But, I am me.  Me right now means we took our four kids to Farmington, NM.  Ian works long days, travels a lot, and can't take vacation 9 months out of the year.  So, we get our vacations in when and where we can. Last week it was an overnighter to Farmington, since Ian had to go there for work for a couple of days. Rental car...oh, yeah. The night before we left, my kindergartner prayed. "We are grateful we can go to Washington, or Farmington, or wherever and go swimming." Oh you sweet, sweet girl. Many of you may not know much about Farmington.  Let me tell you what I know. Don't get excited, you aren't going to learn much. Farmington: it is about a 3 hour drive from where I live.  It is bigger than the town I grew up in...

So there is this really fun thing to do.  It is called going "out" with my baby. I feel that I am on vacation when I am out with my baby. I also feel like a liar. I've mentioned my beautiful two year old before. She is really lovely. Eyelashes 2 inches long. Beautiful round cheeks, with cute little pink lips that say cute words. This walk she has is a strut, swinging her arms, tossing her hips. Very adorable. She also screams at me a lot, with that lovely little mouth. Her beautiful self-curled hair framing her perfect little features, and that face produces a sound. Like a cricket, but 1,000 times louder. Sort of shocking like a car horn, but I can't get away from it.  I walk away and it follows me from room to room.  Like a police siren.  It is as if she is the police officer and I am getting pulled over, and I never even voted her the police officer of my house.  She is a usurping dictator with an obnoxious police siren stuck in her esophagus, relentless in...

My husband is a public accountant and works in auditing.  These are a lot of words. Don't look too far into it. It basically means he travels. He travels to little towns all over the state and audits utility companies and governments and banks and pension plans. So, he has this "government season." He works more than normal, and travels more than normal. Government season he gets to go on these exotic mini-vacations to places like Farmington, New Mexico and I am here. It is government season right now, and for the next few months. He tells me he works a lot.  Maybe 12 hour days. Works all day at the client site, and then he works again in his motel room. He eats out for every meal. Part of me knows that this isn't fun. Part of me knows that he can't hear the giggles of his children and eat a home cooked meal. But there is this other part that can't help feeling like the man is on vacation. It is in the morning, before school starts and I am trying to pack ...

Morning was so good. I woke up to waffles, made on my new adorable heart shaped waffle iron. Ian made them. He also made home-made syrup that exploded all over the stove top. Sometimes Ian thinks homemade syrup should have some baking soda. That syrupy heart-shaped waffle tasted great. We practiced the song we were singing in church.  Our two big little girls and Ian and I were all singing a song together.  I thought it sounded pretty good. I was excited for our big day. Things were really going my way. Then I sat there while it happened to me. Ian walked out of the bathroom and his face was bald. Bald. There was no warning. No conversation. Not even a whisper that this moment was coming. Needless to say, I did not take it well. I love that beard.   Some people have talents they were just born with. Like they instinctively know how to play with two year old people, or they are born with a fantastic sense of style, or a fast runner right from the star...

Sports. I am a huge fan of playing sports.  Exercise and competition are fun.  If I could exercise every day by playing a sport,  that would be awesome. My favorite sport is basketball. I haven't played in years.  I don't know why basketball isn't part of mommy park groups, but it isn't.  Boo. I love ultimate frisbee because it encompasses every ability level. Right now I play indoor soccer.   This isn’t about playing sports.  This is about watching sports.  It is that time of year again.  That time of year for football. If I know nothing else about facebook, I know that it loves football. It talks about statistics and games and players.  I went to school at BYU, and football is preached from the pulpit.  I heard talks every fall about BYU football, the one true and living team. Guys. I am going to say something that is hard for many many of you to hear.  Football is way too long.  Way, way too long. H...

Recently I had a conversation with my oldest daughter.  She is 7. "Mom, I am just wondering why I didn't jump off the diving board." We had gone a a party at a house with a swimming pool. Kids her own age and younger were jumping off the diving board.  Julie had run up to the edge and back of the diving board 7 times or so over the course of the party. She would run to the edge with a donut floaty around her belly, look out at the water, and then run back to safety. "I would just look down at the water and it looked so big. Like the ocean." She thought her floaties would pop when she hit the water.  I explained to her, even if her floaties popped she would have kicked her legs, and tried to swim. If she had trouble, I would have jumped in and saved her. "But mom, why weren't the other girls scared?" Well, they had done it before.  They knew what would happen when they hit the water.  They knew they would survive. I cut my hair. Short.  So...

Yesterday was my birthday. Now I am 31. But I think I have layers. Like a cake. Or an onion if you are of the ogre persuasion. I prefer cake. Chocolate cake, and vanilla custard filling. So, now the top layer is 31. The layer of frosting. Buttercream. My buttercream layer is the mother of four children, and is getting fine lines around her eyes, and unfortunate cellulite on her thighs. She is learning how to be a writer, a photographer, and has lately given up cooking. Underneath are all the layers of every other age I've ever been. The 25 year old chocolate layer and graduate student and mother of 2, the 22 year old first time mom, the 20 year old custard layer who is struggling heart-broken, starving college student, the 18 year old kid who can't wait to leave the house, the 14 year old freshman high-school basket-baller, the 12 year old with the broken wrist doing algebra with my left hand, the 10 year old in love with Gilbert Blythe, the 8 year old obsessed with my ki...