It's been a whirlwind few months with all the packing, the drive out to Austin, then the house hunting on a tight timeline. But we all arrived safely, found a home we love and we're trying to keep from going stir crazy in our temporary place while waiting to close on said home. We definitely feel like our lives are in limbo right now and the big changes have affected everyone emotionally but hopefully those feelings won't take too long to abate.

Our future backyard. Can't wait!!

Maybe I'm getting excited too early here, but the beginning of this coming June, we are packing our bags and headed to a new place and a new phase of our life!

Tom and I have had our eyes on Texas for many years now, though it wasn't always that way. I remember both of us once talking about states we'd never live in. The list included Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota - pretty much any state that deals with long and awful winters. Oh and Texas.

At the time neither of us had been to Texas and when I pictured what it must be like there I envisioned flat ground, lots of dust and sparse vegetation. Yeah, there are some areas like that but were we ever surprised when we visited Houston for the first time. My aunt and her family had lived in Houston for a long time and as my grandparents got older they bought a house around the block from them. In September of 2008 they flew our little family out for a visit. They wanted to meet their first great granddaughter. Though short, it was a memorable trip in so many ways and Tom and I fell in love with Houston instantly.  It was almost as lush as Baltimore, where we were living at the time, and free of cold winters. We knew after that trip, with the weather and scenery and housing market looking so great we wanted to end up in Houston or somewhere similar within the state. So last summer when it was time for Tom to accept one or two of the law internships he had applied for we decided on a firm in Houston and a firm in Austin.

We had never been to Austin before but it was no less disappointing than Houston. Nice and green, a little less humid than Houston and very vibrant in general. The rolling green hills around lake Travis and in some areas of Austin reminded us of the gorgeous Maryland countryside. Both Austin and Houston looked like great places to settle down, but after getting offers from both firms, Tom could only accept one. He decided on the firm that would have more Biotech specific patent work. He has his doctorate in biology and really hoped to be able to use that in his work as an attorney. So now we are moving to Austin and so excited to be finally finished with school and to have an actual job. Yes it might get stressful as we start paying back school loans but he's been working toward this for so long. He commented to me the other night that this move will have us feeling like actual grownups. Haha! You would think 12 years of marriage and 4 kids would have made us feel grown up. But he's right in some ways. It will be a big step and one that we are so excited for, though we will certainly miss our families.

I've already started packing. Premature perhaps, but I like to take my time and organize things well instead of just dumping items in boxes in a rush. We are leasing a furnished place for two months while we take some time to house hunt. So hopefully we'll become first time homeowners right away too. So many exciting changes!

So I donate my hair every 2 1/2 to 3 years. I've been doing that for a long time and each time I donate, I try a new hair style. This round, it was time for a pixie. The picture below is not very good but it shows you how long my hair was:

And right after visiting Shep Studio, which if you're in Utah County I highly recommend:

I already LOVE this haircut! More than any I've had in a long time. I just might keep it a while.

I've been considering going pixie for some time but the extra weight I was packing on my face (ahem, double chin especially) discouraged me from it. But then, I lost 20 lbs. and my hair was plenty long enough to donate so it was time to go for it.

I'm already having fun styling it, and it is so easy to do too! No more hours spent blow drying and straightening my hair.  I feel more glam and pretty than I have in a while.

Tonight being my last night here in Houston and all, Angel girl, my grandparents and I went over to my Aunt’s house to have a barbecue. She makes some good burgers! We had finished up dinner and I was trying to keep the baby entertained while my Aunt and Grandma cleared off the table when all the sudden a cake was placed in front of me that said Happy Birthday Summer! My Aunt lit the candles and they all sang to me. My birthday isn’t for a while yet but they wanted to have a mini celebration with me.

I’m one who absolutely LOVES surprises but rarely get any so this made me just a little teary. It was so unexpected and so sweet. I even got a present, a new journal which I’ve no doubt I’ll make good use of. Thanks so much grandma! (I know it was all your idea you sly granny you)

Five and a half years. That’s how long we’ve been out here, in graduate school.
Thousands of miles away from family, our kids hardly even know their relatives. The last time we saw them was 2 1/2 years ago, when Ethan was 4 and Caleb was 3.

In some ways, I love being far away from my family. There are lots of things, of a stressful nature happening constantly. And it’s good to be distanced from it. But at other times I’m sad about it.

Like when I think of my littlest sister, who I use to dream of driving around to the mall with her friends as she got older, and us dying our hair together and maybe even me being her confidante. She was only 10 when we moved away, and she’s growing up without me around. Her most crucial years and I’m missing them.

Or like when I think of my mom, who has always been my good friend and who I’ve only grown closer to and developed more respect for as I’ve become a mother myself. I wish she could see her grandkids whenever she wanted.

Or like when I think of my littlest brother. I hear he’s six foot two now. But I wouldn’t let that go to his head of course. He’s still my little brother.

For as much as I love my family, and want my children to be near them and really know them, I don’t have any desire to move back to where they are right now. And it doesn’t all revolve around family issues. The culture in Utah is… well, when you’re a Mormon who has lived most of your life in Utah, it’s easy to confuse the culture and the gospel of Jesus Christ. It has been so refreshing to separate the culture from the gospel and gain a better perspective of the simplicity of the Church’s teachings. I really don’t want my kids to grow up in Utah for that reason among others. I want them to have more clarity than I did. To not waver in their testimonies of the gospel because of the unkindness or poor examples of members they will inevitably meet who don’t fully live what they claim to believe in. Of course this happens in all religions. And could happen even outside of Utah, but it’s a worry for me all the same.

But I don’t even know when Hubby will graduate or where we’ll move.

We started out on the same page, neither of us having any desire to go back to Utah. But absence has made his heart grow fonder. And he would like to live near his family again. So I’ve been pondering my feelings since I figure the possibility of moving to Utah may come into play in the near future. He’s been told he’ll graduate this year. Yet there is still no end in sight…

Yesterday I went and saw the dentist again. He told me we would be taking care of a small restoration. I asked him how small it was, how deep he would need to drill and how long it would take for him to complete the process. To what did these questions turn, you ask? Why to my hair brained idea that maybe I wanted to go without local anesthetic of course.

You see, me and anesthetic don’t mix. They shoot me with the stuff and my heart races and I feel so icky and panicky the whole time. And then my lip is fat for hours afterward and my face itches but I can’t feel myself scratching, etc. I honestly hate the feeling of local anesthesia more than being in labor.

So I told him to start drilling and we would see how it went. Yes, I am completely nuts I think. But he drilled as far as he needed to, going slowly and the pain was minimal. It just made me jump at times it was so sudden and cold. But it really wasn’t bad. When he had finished prepping me for the filling I was very proud of myself. I figured I had weathered the worst, oh naive dental patient that I am.

But then he told me he was going to have to put this metal thing between my teeth up next to my gums. He slid it up there and it pinched my gums and right away it hurt worse than the drilling had. But though the pain was intense it was fleeting once the thing was secured. Then he told me he was going to have to drive a tiny wedge between my teeth. He showed me this little blue thing that looked like it had been carved out of a toothpick. No problem right. Wrong!

He started to push it in, and Holy %$#*&*&#$ %$&*@&%*$!
I’ve never passed out, I don’t know what it feels like, but I thought I might do it. He saw me arching my back and drove it in real quick. I felt all warm and woozy with pain for a moment but then it started dulling and I thought I could keep going. Then he had to stretch a rubber dam over everything and that tugged on the metal thing pinching my gums again and it really really really really hurt. But I had come this far without local anesthetic and I was NOT GIVING IN. Finally it was time to fill the tooth and that didn’t bug me at all. Then he removed all the crap killing my gums and the pain was pretty much gone right away. And I was smiling. Because I didn’t have a numb face.

Will I do it again? I can’t decide. I am leaning towards not, however. I must choose the lesser of two evils and now I’m thinking it’s the anesthesia. Maybe it doesn't always work on my teeth but it’s definitely always worked on my gums, which is where the real pain is people. Trust me.

I think I have a fairly decent pain threshold.

I played roller hockey with my brother and his friends as a teen and proudly displayed the bruises and welts I received.

I played High School Basketball and got knocked about plenty as one of the shortest players on the court.

I birthed a 9 pound 15 ounce baby with a failed epidural and lived to tell the tale.

It’s not so much pain that I fear. It’s the absence of pain. The absence of feeling. Just like the kind you get when the dentist gives you a shot. I am afraid of being numb.

No I don’t care about the shot itself, that never hurts. But once I’ve been injected with the lidocaine, my muscles tense, my heart rate increases and I stay in a very anxious state until it has completely worn off.
Now I’ve gotten better over the years. I don’t write down my plans in case of death before visiting the dentist anymore, though I do still tell my husband to tell the kids how much I love them, just in case.

I try to calm myself mentally beforehand. And though I mostly believe that everything will be ok once I go, my body doesn’t believe me. Let’s just say it’s a darn good thing that dentist wears a mask.

I began with the usual warnings I give all dentists who are working on me for the first time:

* When I’m nervous I have to pee a lot, so you better let me go, no matter where you are in the procedure.

* You may have to give me a possible 7 shots before I’ll get numb enough (happened during wisdom tooth removal)

* The lidocaine may or may not wear off early. Sometimes it lasts way too long and sometimes it gives out after 20 minutes.

* If I bite your hand, remember, it’s nothing personal

So he began.

He shot me with lidocaine and after 5 minutes he tested my gum tissue. Good and numb. Wow, that’s a surprise.

*drill drill*

*Summer jolting*

“Yeah, felt that. Cold and painful”

“OW!!”

“Yeah, right there.”

*injecting more lidocaine*

*drill drill*

“ACK!!!”

At this point the dentist tested my gums again. I couldn’t feel anything which he told me indicated that I should be completely numb. But upon further drilling, yes I was indeed in pain. And that was just the beginning. He had two additional cavities to fill.

I told him to just get it done. I didn’t want anymore stupid shots (which were numbing only the very back teeth) and I just wanted the drilling to be over. So he drilled and I winced alot and three hours later it was over.

As he removed the rubber dam from my mouth I flexed my jaw and made a stunning realization. With all that junk in my mouth stretching my face muscles, I hadn’t noticed that the left side of my tongue and the whole bottom part of my face was numb. Why is this stunning you ask?

Because he was working on my top teeth. He gave me shots in the roof of my mouth, yet my bottom lip down to my chin was numb?!? When I told him this he chuckled and told me my nerves must be crossed. I’m sure he didn’t believe me. He said he had one patient once who insisted with every shot to her lower mouth, her upper mouth was getting more and more numb, but he figured it was just her mind playing tricks on her.

Well I am here to say that even if it was my mind playing tricks on me, it was still something I could actually feel. I was numb where I shouldn’t be numb and my one tooth was NOT numb. Even if that was some trick of my warped mind, it was tangible.

I am a dental anomaly.

*P.S. I give you leave to laugh at my expense. I am a rather sorry case aren’t I?

I had a birthday recently and I slept in till 8:30 a.m.! Yeah, that’s sleeping in around here. Sad, isn’t it? And when I awoke the smell of fried potatoes was drifting into my room. The boys both came in about then and yelled Happy Birthday and proceeded to ask me questions like, “When is your party?” “Are you making a cake?” and “Can you buy me a present for your birthday?”

Yes, it is true that the more birthdays I have, the less I feel like they are really about me. I’d just as soon buy the kids presents for my birthday because doing things like that makes me happy. And they’d like that too. Besides that, they don’t accept my answer to “What do you want for your birthday mom?”

I told Ethan I wanted no fighting and to be obeyed without whining for my birthday and he said, “Mo-om! That’s not a real present.”

Wanna make a bet little buddy? That’s as good as gold to me. But then I remembered my mom saying she wanted the same types of things for her birthday and me rolling my eyes over it.

Anyhow, after the scrumptious breakfast Hubby made me, I was given the most heavenly back massage ever. Followed by the house becoming miraculously tidy without my lifting a finger. And then, oh then… without me saying a word or giving a sideways glance, Hubby, amazing husband that he is, did TWO loads of laundry. Well, he didn’t fold the laundry, but he put the loads into and took them out of the washer and dryer without prompting of any sort on my part. *pause for breath*

Yes, it was truly wonderful.

Later that day, shortly before we left I heard Hubby whipping up something in the kitchen and though I was curious as of to what it might be, I didn’t peek at the recipe he was looking at. He finished whatever it was, the babysitter showed up and then he whisked me off to the big city. We walked around downtown while searching for a restaurant I had hinted I would like to try. We ended up walking past it probably 4 times because it was halfway underground and the sign was right at eye level unlike all the other signs which we were looking up at. In the end we found it after calling a friend for directions, and we sat and enjoyed some authentic Indian cuisine.

Upon coming home I was treated to an amazing English Sticky Toffee Pudding. It’s not quite the texture of bread pudding and not quite the texture of cake. But it was delicious and the Toffee sauce was to die for.
So all in all, a positively delightful birthday from my family!