The Big Three One

Today I turned 31.  It's extremely surreal to think about that, and I think that in the next couple weeks I'm probably going to get all up in my head about it, but today was a really good day so that's what I'm focusing on right now.

I was really excited for my birthday this year because after how horrible last year was, I figured there was nowhere to go but up.  And I was right!

Yesterday when I went to the gym I found a $10 Dunkin' Donuts giftcard waiting for me, and this morning, I checked my work email to find that my boss had sent me a $25 Dunkin' Donuts giftcard, so I'm going to be super caffeinated this week!  I was so touched that she thought to get me something, I seriously love her.  Almost ALL of my co-workers remembered my birthday this year, which was lovely, and I got a card and cupcakes from the billing department.  In the afternoon I got flowers at work from my sister and my nephew.  And Jerbs had the day off so she took me out for dinner.  We went to Beaver Street Brewery and I got a brewer's platter (pretty much my favorite meal ever), and we got a free dessert sampler because it was my birthday.  (They let you pick between a free shot of your choice or a free dessert).

So all in all an awesome day and just SO MUCH BETTER than last year when I was sitting in my car in the Michael's parking lot with the dogs because I was afraid to be home alone.

Here's to my 31st year!  I am determined to make it a good one.

SNOW DAY!!!!!

We got a whoooole bunch of snow overnight, and it's still snowing right now.

So MHC is CLOSED today!

Which means I'm sitting at home in my PJ's hanging out with my dogs and watching TV so life is pretty much perfect.

And I got lucky in that I didn't even make it to work before we closed.  I got up early AF this morning to take Jerbs to work, and the snow was terrible.  It took forever to get the car uncovered and dug out (there was a guy plowing the parking lot and he came by and cleared behind the car for us, so that was nice).  Then the roads weren't clear by any stretch of the imagination, not even the highway, and it was still snowing.  So by the time I got her to work and got home to take a shower and get ready for work myself, I was running way behind time wise and knew I was going to be late.  I texted my boss to let her know and then showered/moisturized/blow dried/perfumed and all that stuff.  I was just starting to get dressed when my phone rang.  It was one of my co-workers; she asked if I was on my way in, and when I said I was just about to leave my house, she told me not to bother because they had decided to close the clinic.

So I put my pajamas back on and did a little happy dance (I mean that totally literally).

Best Monday ever.

Book of Mormon at Gammage

This past Friday, the 6th, Jerbs and I went down to Phoenix to see the musical The Book of Mormon, and it was absolutely fanfreakingtastic.  We've wanted to see it pretty much since it hit Broadway, and Jerbs bought tickets like the second the tour dates were announced, so we'd been looking forward to it for awhile.  (There was a little SNAFU a few days ago--we'd decided to go to the show on a Friday so I didn't have to take a day off work (going to 2 out of state weddings pretty much killed my PTO), and last Monday, Jerbs looked at the tickets and realized she'd bought them for Thursday, the 5th.  Fortunately she was able to exchange them without much trouble, thank goodness, and we got to go as planned).

The drive to Phoenix wasn't bad, and we made good time (like I've said before, the drive to SLC makes 3 hours in the car feel like nothing).  We got down there and had dinner with Betsy (at this Mexican place that I really would like to go to again, BTW); after dinner we wandered around the mall where the restaurant was for a little while.  Then we headed over to Gammage and oh my gosh the traffic right around the theatre was a nightmare.  I got cut off and almost hit a few times, and by the time we parked I was beyond irritated.  Thankfully we made it inside in time, but just barely--we literally sat down at 7:29 (I saw that while I was turning off my phone) and curtain was at 7:30.

It was well worth the stress, though, because the show was amazing.  It was hysterically funny (laughed so hard I cried more than once) and perfectly over the top offensive.  Not as in I was offended in by it, more in a how did they get away with that kind of way.  (Side note--I know the tour was heading to SLC sometime after AZ, because Jenna and Theresa tried to get tickets and the whole run had sold out--I enjoy imagining the Mormons leaving early because they didn't do their research).  And the cast was really good as well, the female lead apparently went to ASU for her undergrad, which I thought was cool.  It was pretty much a full house, I've never seen Gammage that packed.  The bathroom line at intermission was INSANE.  (Another side note--Gammage actually has donation envelopes in the bathrooms so you can give money to the "Golden Gammage Initiative," which is an initiative to build more bathrooms at Gammage.  Seriously, Golden Gammage.  I was so entertained by that).  We found out after the show that Gammage has already booked the second national tour for their 2017 season, and while I hope I won't still be in AZ by then, if I am I'll totally see it again.

After the show I spent way too much money at the merch table, as I always do at shows, but oh well.  I got good stuff so it was worth it!  And I also, as always, donated to Broadway Cares, because that's something that's really important to me.

Anyway, it was definitely a fun and memorable trip, and it kind of reminded me how much I like going to live music things.  I need to do more stuff like that in the future, for sure!

Lately

I am more busy right now than I've ever been.  It's fantastic.

For the past two weeks my days (Mondays and Wednesdays, anyhow) have typically been going like this: wake up, get to MHC by 8:30, work until I take my lunch break at 2:00, run across the street to SHF and do as much work as I can in about 45 minutes, go back to MHC and finish out my day there, head back to SHF a little before 6, do my work there until about 7, hit the elliptical for 40(ish) minutes, and by then it's 8 PM and Jerbs is getting off work so I pick her up and head home.  It makes for roughly 12 hour days.  It's kind of nice but exhausting.  Fortunately next week should be a little easier because the billing cycle (ie super busy time) at SHF is pretty much done.

I got sick at work on Thursday.  A pharm rep had brought pizza for lunch, and I had a couple slices, and it just didn't agree with me.  I ended up leaving around 2, coming home, and not being able to keep down anything but water and crackers for the rest of the night.  Lovely.

But today was Saturday, and Jerbs was off, and I didn't have to go to either of my jobs, and it was rainy and cool out . . . basically a perfect set up for a day.  Jerbs and I had lunch, ran some errands, went to the mall and played with kittens at the adoption center there (because we're 5), took the dogs to the pond and let them run around, and watched Mean Girls on Netflix.  Life is good.

Kittens!  The two chasing the toy are flame point siameses, the one on the far right
is an orange and white DSH.  Her name is Strawberry.  Best hour of the day.

Monsoon-y evening at the pond.  It's a little blurry because I was holding Hollie's
leash and she was pulling to get to the ducks.

A Saucy Weekend

Yesterday my sister and Austin went to a Diamondbacks game in Phoenix; one of Jenny's good friends rents the pool at the field and invites all her friends and their kids and it's becoming a tradition.  One of my sister's friends and her boyfriend, who live here in Flagstaff, went with them this year, so Jenny and Austin got to spend some time in Flag before and after they went down to Phoenix.  Which, of course, meant I got to spend lots of time with that sweet little nephew of mine.

We went to Michaels and JoAnns, did arts and crafts, played with Max and Hollie, and fed the ducks at the pond.  I didn't get any pictures while we were at the pond (because supervising Austin, carrying all our stuff, and holding onto two dogs--one of whom wants nothing more than to throw herself into the pond after the ducks--made it a little hard to take pictures).

He colored with Auntie Jerbs.

And painted a pirate ship birdhouse.

And of course cuddled Max.  Because they're besties.

I love getting to spend time with this child.  He just makes my heart happy and I am so grateful that I get to be a part of his life, even if it's from a distance.

Today

We woke up to snow!  Well, I woke up to snow, Jerbs got to sleep in, but still!  It started snowing just before I went to bed last night and it apparently lasted because there were a couple inches on the ground in the morning.  It was so pretty.  I'm glad that even if my holiday spirit is still basically gone I can still get little kid level excited about snow.  It snowed for a couple hours and then poured down rain all day after that.  It's still raining.  Just as lovely as the snow, I think.

After work I took my car to Discount Tire to get one of my tires fixed, and they were packed.  Lots of people getting snow tires put on and stuff.  So they told me it would be a 2.5 hour wait just for my little repair, which sucked, but I didn't have a choice.  I wandered over to the Bookman's plaza and went to Michaels, JoAnn, and Bookmans.  Bookmans has a cool little cafe, so I got a Mexican mocha latte (so good!) and sat by the window and just watched the rain come down.  It was lovely.  There was a very interesting guy performing there today . . . I didn't find out his name, but he's a singer/guitarist/Native American flute player.  I think my favorite song was "Don't Worry, Be Hopi," which was sung to the beat of "Don't Worry, Be Happy."  It was all about the trials, triumphs, and spirit of the Hopi tribe.  It was pretty amazing, in a Flagstaff kinda way.  

They had these little signs up around the cafe, and it made me happy:

Love it.  If I were doing NaNo this year I'd totally write there.

I finally headed back to the tire place and on the way I passed this . . . um, interesting? . . . bit of Christmas window art.  I can't remember which business had it on their window but I find it odd:

I texted it to B, and this conversation happened.

Me: I do not understand what's happening in this picture.

B: He's . . . inflating his sack?

Me: He's inflating someone's sack.

B: It's so swollen.

B: He's blushing too, little scamp.

Me: Viiiiirgin.

Yeah.  We're interesting together.

I got back to the tire place right about 2.5 hours after I dropped my car off and sat there for another 45 minutes.  It sucked.  And my tire was fixable but when they took it off they found it was totally bald on the inside.  I told them to just put the spare on if they could get to it (getting to my spare is complicated . . . my dad wasn't able to when I was in Ktown).  I thought for sure I was going to end up having to buy a new tire but the spare thing worked out and I had my car like 5 minutes after my conversation with the tech.

Then I picked up my Lithium, which is awesome.  I was dreading doing it because I thought for sure my doctor's office would have fucked up again, but thankfully that wasn't the case.  Woohoo medication.

So that was my day.  I think this was the first Friday since I started at MHC that I didn't come straight home and take a nap after work . . . maybe I'm growing up!

Probably not, though.  Probably not.

Life Is Lovely

Yesterday was just one of those days.  And I mean that in a good way.  One of those days where I just felt happy and content and where I was very aware of exactly how amazing my life is now that I'm mentally healthy.

I slept in but still woke up at a decent hour, and spent the afternoon cleaning out and organizing my closet.  That sounds so boring but I've been meaning to do it for a couple months now.  I definitely have a tendency to just throw things into my closet and never really put it away properly, plus I have a bunch of clothes I haven't worn in at least a year (all of which is being donated to Big Brothers Big Sisters), and there was still a good amount of Jerbs' stuff in my closet that I wanted to move.

Then I picked up Jerbs from work and we had dinner at Ruby Tuesday, then wandered around the mall.  Hot Topic was having a sale where everything in the store was buy one get one half off, which was exciting.  Jerbs bought me these three bracelets:

LEGIT--because it just makes me laugh.
On Wednesdays We Wear Pink--because Mean Girls
is freaking awesome.
I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up To No Good--because Harry Potter
is even more freaking awesome than Mean Girls.

Then we went to Old Navy to see if they had any good sales going, and to Cost Plus World Market because we hadn't been there in forever.  Then we came home and just hung out, and ended up watching The Breakfast Club (which I have now only ever seen twice, and which Jerbs knows every single line to).  

It was just such a lovely day.  I felt very content, and very contained within myself.  I know that sounds odd but when I was sick, I used to have a lot of problems with dissociation and derealization, and I spent a lot of time feeling like I was sort of outside of my body, like I was watching my life from a distance but not actually living it.  It was one of the most uncomfortable things I'd ever felt--that I've EVER felt, still--and I hated it.  It was when that feeling was strongest that I would really start thinking about killing myself.  So now, to feel like I'm actually HERE . . . it's pretty awesome.

I love days like that.  Life's not perfect but it sure is better than it used to be!

Introducing Max

I'd like to introduce Max.  He's my new baby.

Full name: Maximillion Giffin . . . still working on a middle name!

I know, kind of out of the blue, right?

This whole thing started about a week and a half ago at work.  It was a Tuesday, and one of my co-workers was talking about how she'd rescued a dog over the weekend.  Basically, she had taken her kids down to Phoenix to visit their dad, and they'd gone to visit some friend/distant relative at their house.  In the backyard was Max and these two big pitbulls who'd obviously been trained to be mean pits, and they were picking on Max.  At one point my co-worker was in the house and heard a dog yelping in pain; she went outside and one of the pits had Max in his mouth, holding him by the hips.  He dropped Max when he saw her but then picked him up again, this time by the neck/head.  My co-worker and her friend wrestled him away from the pit, and she could tell when she touched him that he'd been neglected (ribs poking out, etc), so she basically dognapped him.  She said she couldn't leave him because she knew if she did he'd end up dead.

Well, the thing is, she's only allowed to have cats ate her place; she lives in rent controlled housing and has 4 kids so getting evicted//moving isn't really an option.  None of the no-kill shelters in town would take him (they only rescue from shelters now) and she didn't want to give him to a kill shelter because he's so skittish/scared, he'd never get adopted and would end up put down.

I asked Jerbs and initially I said we'd foster him, just keep him until he was ready for a new home.  Because I can't say no to rescues after Benji, and their stories were so similar . . . yeah.  The next day we took our lunches at the same time and I went home with her to meet Max.  Well, I fell in love.  He is so cute, and the way he acted reminded me SO much of Benji when I first had him.  At that point I pretty much knew I wasn't going to be his foster mom, I was going to be his forever mom.

He went to the vet and got neutered and his first round of shots this past Monday, and then spent the rest of the week recovering at my co-workers house.  A couple hours ago her and all the kids came by to drop him and his stuff off, and he's officially mine!  It was hard for them to let him go, though, which sucks but also shows how good of people they are . . . all of them have big hearts and I know that they'd have given Max a fantastic home if they could have.  (And can I just tell you that these 4 kids are amazing?  I was so happy to meet them, and I'm looking forward to spending time with them so they can see Max).  And I told the kids how I ended up with Benji and explained that he came from the same background as Max, and that seemed to put them at ease.

I'm definitely going to keep in touch; I promised them I'd text them pictures and stuff and I know that this summer we'll probably all take Max to the park together and stuff like that.  Like I said, this family is awesome, and I have no problem sharing Max with them.

It's definitely odd to have him home.  I didn't even know I wanted another dog--like it wasn't something I was even remotely thinking about--but I'm so excited to have Max!  I remember how cool it was to kind of watch Benji come out of his shell and lose that fear and abused attitude, and I'm happy I get to watch that again.  I really do believe that rescuing an animal is the only way to get a pet, because the work you put in is rewarded with a really unbelievable loyalty.  I am really looking forward to watching Max adjust to his new house and become a part of my little family.