Bloggity blog. Things are looking up.

Hi and welcome, won't you?

I am trying to think straight now that Adeline's got her toy guitar at full-blast. What was I doing? Where am I? What's my name? What's the square root of 2, to 5 decimal places? I had a good train of thought, but it's gone out the window. What a good girl though, I am always explaining to her when it's too loud to turn it down. And she just did! And said, "Make it...quiet." Apparently the lessons have sunk in. Hooray!

In a twist of pleasant events, I realized yesterday that I have not had an anxiety dream in a long time since coming to Albuquerque. That is very nice. Apparently my subconscious feels like it can deal with life again and I don't have to be beaten by repeated tidal and tsunami waves (one of my most common reoccurring anxiety dreams), or being chased and stung by bees, or being chased and bitten by snakes, or having my teeth fall out, or having to try to remember junior high locker combinations that have long since evaporated out of my memory, making me late for class. Funny that it's not the naked final in college. But I actually liked high school and college, whereas junior high would often bring me to tears and I'm sure gave me plenty of complexes where some of the P.E. girls would talk about wanting to beat me up for accidently hitting one of their friends during gym in the chest with a soccer ball (this went on for at least a month, and I was prepared to fight them like a cornered animal), or when rumors about me being a lesbian started going around. Yeah, thanks a lot, junior high. You suck. On another note, I'm not really scared of bees and snakes, not like spiders, so after having a few of these dreams, they are just a dull ache and annoying bother, and not really too traumatic. Just exhausting. I wake up tired after those dreams. I like the ocean and waves too, except when I'm being mercilessly beaten and waterlogged in my dreams by big waves that I can't handle.

Wow, Danelle the Downer has reared her ugly head. This was supposed to be a happy post. Well I still haven't been sleeping well, but that is due more to me not wanting to go to bed and puttering around at night. Discipline discipline. Haha! Maybe I'm too tired to have anxiety dreams. Whatever happened to Disciplined Danelle? Was I ever disciplined?

My window to take Adeline to the park, or at least outside, is closing, so I had better bring you up to speed on life since moving to Albuquerque. It's lovely here, we enjoy it. I enjoy it. The ward is awesome. I love so many of the ladies, many I am still getting to know. I still feel like I could do better at calling people and getting more involved in activities going on. I've been placed in Nursery, which has put me in a social black hole, and I had to make peace with it (and I am loving it now!), since it has felt like an official or unofficial calling for the last THREE YEARS! Seriously, can I try something new? But now my husband hints to me (he's the Ward Clerk and hangs with the Bishopric and is privy to some details) that a new calling might be blowing my way. And that I might have to do double-duty too. Oops, I think I said Mum's the Word when he was telling me all this. Well sorry, it's been on my mind. He hinted that it was a musical calling. That's fine, although I've been getting a little tired of those too. I've been playing the organ for the last little while too, and doing ward choir stuff and accompaniment, it seems almost since I met Adam in the Newport Beach singles ward. (Splitting hairs, he was in the Irvine ranch branch, but we had mutual friends.) Tangent: I think it's kind of funny that Adam is the Ward Clerk. I guess it was a natural progression. His last calling was Executive Secretary so he is used to hanging with the Bishopric. About ward clerks, the last ward clerk I dated was at BYU and his name was Adam too! We used to flirt and make eyes at church and we dated for awhile and I would bring him chocolate-covered strawberries when he had to stay a few hours after church doing the tithing stuff. I did find out that he has hypoglycemia so the chocolate-covered strawberries after having not eaten for awhile was probably not the best thing for him to be eating. Oh well. He was a good kid. And I should bring MY ADAM some chocolate-covered strawberries when he has to stay after late. Seriously, the strawberries are in the fridge ready to go for this week.

Adam and I are having our SIXTH ANNIVERSARY on Septempber 2nd, and we are celebrating it this Saturday. I'm excited for that. I LOVE YOU, ADAM! (He's probably not going to read this, but I'm still going to say it.) I actually had to "do the math" to remember how many years we had been married. I was sure that this was our seventh anniversary, but nope, I snuck an extra year in there. What's funny is that the day after I had confirmed the actual number in my brain bucket, we were driving in the car and Adam said, "It will almost be our tenth anniversary soon!" And I had to laugh and ask him how long he though we had been married, and I think he said 7 or 8 years. I had to set him straight and jab him a little, joking that maybe things are so tedious in our marriage that it just FEELS that long. But hopefully I am not too much of a harpy. I hardly nag. Maybe I nag once a month. I do stupid things though. Like take long road trips to get photos. Not everyone is happy that I do this, but I really enjoy it and the contest will be over soon. And then I will find the next stupid thing with which to devote my time. (Did you see what I did there? I avoided a dangling modifier. I was going to say "stupid thing to devote my time *to*." Never end with "to." I'm trying to be better about my English and grammar. I really do know that I am the queen of fragmented sentences. I guess that is the way I speak. I am also the queen of contractions. Maybe I should cut those out too!) http://www.rinkworks.com/words/grammar.shtml

I hope we can find some fun cheap ways to celebrate our anniversary. It seems like every year we are poorer and poorer, and the past few years I have only gotten him cheap little gifts like chocolates, nothing that follows the traditional anniversary gifts. This year I was thinking about hitting up the Goodwill and getting him the wood, metal, paper, etc, gifts for each year to make up for my lame presents, something that we'll be able to enjoy for the next ten years. I would up-cycle them and make them look good, or personalize them in some way. This week is busy though, and it probably won't happen. I at least wanted to do a caricature of us in our wedding attire or rollerskating or something and frame it for the wall! Cheesy, I know. But a good kind of cheesy. "It's a good silly." I don't really do caricatures but I wanted to teach myself how to do them. It would be fun. I think I have always been an artist first. Then I would be a singer/pianist/performer. And then a scientist/astronomer. I do love science immensely but it's not my first love.

Back to the ceasing of my anxiety dreams, I still have my bizarre ways of coping with the whole Adam-not-getting-a-salary thing. I have my food storage, and I have bought TONS of fabric. Yes, I am sharing something I should probably not share. Our third bedroom is a giant unorganized mess of fabric, a lot of it cute patterned bedsheets I got cheaply at the Goodwill. I figure if everything goes to pot we will at least be clothed. In a funny way it brings me comfort. How sad, I probably just confessed to you that I am a budding hoarder. I've probably always been one. It's how I'm coping. It is probably completely bonkers to be doing that, and I need to get myself organized. That third bedroom should be my piano lesson teaching room and art and craft studio, or something. The messes are depressing. I do need to tackle them. I was visualizing myself fighting, literally fighting, like with a sword, the clutter that has taken over some of the house. And it was actually motivating me to do it! I didn't have time yesterday to actually do it, but here's to hoping that today I can motivate myself to do it and make this place a peaceful, clean place. Things are looking up!

Approximaverit sidera! I need to bust out the tel E scope and go look at the stars, "they're beautiful, aren't they?"

Lovies, Danelle

Stars. I never really look at them anymore, but they actually are quite... beautiful.

Uh, Kay, you're frightening your partner.

I guess now I'm just exaggerating since I had that Star Party at Jarilynne's during the summer and Adam and I used the tele when we first got here. But I caught myself staring at the stars driving home on the road trip a few days ago, looking at the lovely Milky Way and being excited that I could see it in rural New Mexico. And then since I lingered and laughed at book club, I got to stare at them for a little while when walking out to my car. It was nice. And peaceful. And majestic. The moon is looking quite lovely, too. When you study them, you stop seeing the beauty, too.

Addendum - Seriously, Blogger, must you always be messing up my posting? Where did all my nicely spaced paragraphs go? Not cool. This is why I will never truly jump on the bandwagon. I guess I should give credit where it's due, I have never been able to even post a complete post from Google Chrome, I always had to open IE to do it, which is beyond weird because isn't Blogger connected with Google? But it worked today, so someone programmed and slapped a patch on that mess. Google, I expected more from you, and you usually delivered more too! Google, I still like you though. How could I not? Your email service is great and you've given me plenty of free space, for which I am not ungrateful. Still, I had to bust out the basic html programming today to get the spaces in, and Adeline's and my park time suffered. I want that time back! End rant.