Morning

I am soooo not a morning person! I wish I was since I have to be to work by 8 everyday (Monday through Friday). I wish I wasn't such a night owl, it would be so much easier to get up for work the next morning if I went to bed at a decent time.
If I was at my house I most likely would go to sleep much earlier, but at my parents house with all the chaos and because I'm sleeping on the couch in the living room, it's difficult to go to sleep as early as I need to. I'm thinking of going to my old room to sleep since it's in the basement and would be much quieter and would make sleeping earlier a lot easier.
I wish I could go back to sleep...........

Family to Family class

Tonight's Family-to-Family class was awesome, even though the class was really small. I really enjoy the class. It's a nice place to vent and talk about my feelings with Steve's mental illness and at the same time learn more about mental illness in general. It was a lot of fun.

I'm actually getting caught up at work. It has been almost 2 years since I felt like I was caught up at work. With so many people appealing lately, we have been bogged down with appeal cases. I am really enjoying work right now since I am feeling accomplished when I leave. I used to feel that I was just shuffling work around and not really getting anything done.

Missee and I started watching Charmed together. I have all 8 seasons on DVD and so far we have watched all of the first season and only have a few episodes left in the second season. It's so much fun to watch the show with Prue and to see how much Piper and Phoebe have changed since the beginning of the series. Phoebe had changed so much since the first season. She was always dressing frumpy and not cute. Luckily she changed her style and started wearing much cuter outfits later on. I LOVE CHARMED!!!!! That is still my favorite tv show of all time. I think I started liking the show much better after Prue left. I'm not a big fan of Shannen Doherty so Prue was my least favorite character. If you live near me and haven't seen Charmed, or you also love the show Charmed I can always bring my DVD's of the show over.........I love watching the episodes, even if I've seen them multiple times.

Not even close to being tired. Why can;t it be Friday so I can sleep in tomorow?

Why am I still up? I have to get up at 6 for work tomorrow and so I should have been asleep a few hours ago. I am having a hard time going to sleep lately, but not much of a problem staying asleep. I would like to take something to sleep, but refuse to take something that I could possibly become addicted to. I have never abused drugs (legal or illegal) and I don't want to start now.
I normally like anniversaries but in about 22 days it will be an anniversary of something I wished had never happened. I'm thinking I might take that day off work so I wont have to worry about crying all day. I wish that no one ever had to go through losing a baby, but unfortunately a lot of women do. My mom lost a baby when she was about seven months pregnant. There was no reason for the death of my sister. When she was delivered (stillborn of course) my mom said she looked like a normal baby. Why did she die then? Why did my mom have to go through that? It will have been 27 years ago on June 14th that my mom lost Angel Marie (the name really fits her). I wanted a sister so bad that I used to get mad that God had taken my sister. I was lucky that 10 years later my mom had my only (living of course) sister, Missee. I am so grateful for Missee everyday. She is a ray of sunshine in my otherwise dreary life right now. I love her dearly and am glad that she is my sister.
I can't procrastinate sleep any longer so.....good night.

My mom and her friend Pam started teaching the "Family - to - Family" class again. The class is one of the classes that NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness www.namiut.org) offers. The class is for friends, family members or anyone who wants to learn more about mental illness and how to cope with a friend or family member's illness. It is an awesome 12 week class and it's my third time taking the class (each time my mom and Pam were the teachers). Because of budget cuts the Utah State government is cutting back in all departments. Unfortunately, the mental health and substance abuse programs are being hit the hardest. The Utah State Governor’s budget recommends that 70% of the cuts from the Department of Human Services come from the Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health. Furthermore, the Legislature is requesting much deeper cuts -- a 15% cut from each Department. (the last two sentences were from the NAMI Utah webpage). Because of what Steve is going through right now I really don't want them to cut as much as they are proposing. The people who can't get help through the State programs will have to get help other ways, and most of them will probably end up in prisons or homeless or even dead. I really wish people would treat mental illness the same as they do with breast cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc. That's my wish for this world - no more stigma when it comes to mental illness and that it would be more accessible to get help when it''s needed.

The saga continues

Steve is still not home. He will be gone for over a month by the time he comes home. I really miss him and hope he is home soon. I've seen very little of my step son since Steve went into the hospital. Since I'm only a step parent I have no rights. Luckily Steve's ex wife was nice enough to let my in-laws have Hunter for about three hours on January 3rd. She really didn't have to do that and I was very grateful that she did. I'm trying really hard to make sure things stay civil between Steve and his ex. I really would hate to see Hunter turn out the way my cousin did. Her mom used her to get back at her dad and now I think she's a little bitter towards her dad and mom. Parents should NEVER use their child to punish their ex-spouse. The child has nothing to do with the reason for the divorce and so they should not be involved with it in any way.

Long commute!

I start off my weekday mornings at four am. I get ready for work and leave my house around 4:45 to drive to the Frontrunner station (the commuter rail in northern Utah) . The train leaves around 5:08 and I get to Salt Lake City at 6:05. Then I get on Trax (Lightrail system in Salt Lake City area) and take it all the way down to Sandy and arrive there about 6:50. Then I get on a bus at 7:00 and it drops me off in across the street from my work at about 7:15. It takes about 2 and a half hours to get to work every day. Most people think I'm crazy for agreeing to take public transit, but I actually enjoy it. I don't have to deal with/worry about crazy Utah drivers, I wont have to drive in the snow and ice, I get time to relax on my way home and I can use my computer and access the internet on the commuter train since they have wifi. The only downside is that i spend less time with my husband. We mostly see each other on weekends and my schedule makes it difficult for us to keep trying for a baby. We're making time though since both of us really want a baby. I should be arriving at my station (I'm on Frontrunner right now) in about 20 minutes (7:00) so I better go. I'll try posting again soon.

My life is constantly changing

So Steve and I moved to Ogden last week. We still have many boxes that we haven't even opened. Man.....I love moving! (I really wish I could convey sarcasm through my blog). It took almost an entire day just to move the items from our old place to our new place. It took even longer to pack up everything. We had my mother in law and father in law help us move and then our home teacher from our old ward and some old guy from the ward who was probably about 70 (he did a really good job though, much better than my 30 year old body could do at times) and then the Relief Society president came over after we had started and helped out. We were completely done and on the road to our new place (only about 35-40 miles away) by 2:00. We made it to our new place by 3 which was when some people from our new ward were going to help us out. Now I understand that we had chosen to move on a Monday but we needed help. Steve's mom stayed at our old place to clean it and Steve's dad had done all he could since he has only one good knee (had a total knee replacement done at the beginning of the year and still needs the other knee done) so he went home to rest. It was Steve and I and his grandfather. Luckily by about 4 we had a bunch of guys from the Elders Quorum there to help us out. It was all going well until one of the guys decided to carry a full sized dresser all by himself (I know....you can see where this is going). When he brought it inside the house he put it down and then hurt his knee really badly. We had to call 911 and have an ambulance pick him up. Steve and the other helpers got the truck unloaded and moved in time for the ambulance to pull into the driveway. It turned out that this guy dislocated his knee cap! He went to the ER where they gave him pain medicine and then just popped it back into place.
Our new place is coming along nicely. It's got an extra bedroom, a larger kitchen, and more parking. The bad things about it are the bedrooms are smaller, the dining room is a little smaller. Overall though we love our new place. When we have gotten our place more set up I will try to post some pictures.
Edit: I forgot to add that we had to get rid of Splenda and Sweet Pea. We loved those cats but were unable to find a place that would allow pets. It was really sad to do, but there were some pros to getting rid of them. Less cat hair all over the place, no litter box, no scratching the furniture. Hopefully thy went to good homes.