Life as Betsy

It’s really strange to see a photo of yourself from the past that you’ve never seen before. I know all the photos in my photo albums and I have seen all the photos that my parents have . . . so seeing this is quite hilarious.

In no particular order::  

~ Asshole decided to merge without looking or using his blinker on 500 tonight. Thank goodness I actually hit my horn, long and hard at him.

~ Driver who didn’t use his blinker on 112th tonight.

~ A classmate who’s been enrolled longer than me but attends school so seldom  she feels that she can ask anyone to instruct her on how to do things.

~ Same classmate who lumps me into her (mid-40’s) age group because I am a handful of years older than a number of our classmates.

~ Same classmate thinking that I should ditch any birthday plans for my own celebration to celebrate someone else’s birthday instead.

~ Tickle in my throat that forced me to run to the bathroom in nearly a drive heave. They always flare up when I get sick.

~ Mike crushing my ailing hydrangea plant with the laundry room blinds today

~ Egg pot of Marigolds only sprouting one single plant.

~ Lack of ability to taste my homemade macaroni and cheese

~ Cheesy early 1990’s special effects in "Total Recall"

~ Sore throat keeping me awake until nearly 4 am

~ Evening flying by too quickly

~ Inability to breathe from one nostril, which chose to jump back and forth between both sides

~ Random neighbor’s car alarm which keeps going off.

~ Purposely misspelled words in an attempt to be cute.  Come on . . . use your letters correctly!

But because the entire day couldn’t be bad -

Highlights of the day::

Weighing low this morning

Doing a decent job on the Shampoo set this morning

Exciting news from my mother

Without a doubt, the one person that I have been the meanest to in my life would be my younger brother Andy. Just two years younger than me, I was the tyrannical big sister who took pleasure in holding him back and making him cry when we were little. Why, you ask? I honestly cannot tell you why. I was little and so wanted to be big and grown up and he was often the only person smaller than me. With his cherub demeanor, white blonde hair and unwavering devotion to me, he was an easy target that I often took aim at. It is easy for me to admit that until about the time we both we in middle school, I wasn’t a good big sister.

To make matters much worse, his birthday was only 16 days before mine. It only made sense to me that since I was older, my birthday should come first and for a good number of his younger birthdays (oh 4 through 9) I was pouty and obnoxious. Definitely not in the mood to celebrate him.

My mother always told me to be nice to brother because one day, he’d be bigger and stronger than me and I wouldn’t want him as an enemy. And she was right. He did grow bigger than me and stronger than me, as well as smarter and more responsible. But he also is the kindest, nicest, most thoughtful guy I’ve ever known. He’s never been an enemy, aside from the days he could tattle on me. Despite everything I did to him, every button I knew to push, every liberty I knew I could take with him, he’s still always right by my side.

It’s funny, because in some ways, I feel so close to him and yet he and I maybe talk once or twice a month. I can tell you though, when I was in Seattle visiting him back in February, there was something about being with him that felt more like "home" than even my own apartment can sometimes feel.  I love my husband and my home here and my life, but there is only one person who knows me like Andy does and when it was time for me to come home that Sunday afternoon, it was extremely hard to leave him up there. Nevermind that he’s lived in Seattle for almost two years and Salem for five years before that. It didn’t feel right for him to not be living in Vancouver.

He turned 25 years old today. I always feel older on other people’s birthdays; moreso than on my own birthday. Because I remember when he was two and broke his leg falling down a flight of stairs. I remember when we were seven and five and told each other what we’d gotten each other for Christmas (I got him a dinosaur and he got me a huge book of fairytales). I remember all those first days of school with our signs and all those family road trips with our bright yellow walkmans and the invisible line down the middle of the back seat that we could not cross. I remember him sobbing because he was too little go on certain rides at Disneyland and the morning he went in for his deviated septum correction. I remember the summer he was gone to Ecuador or correcting his essays for his admission to college. I remember how he held me at my grandmother’s burial, when we all dropped a rose in on top of her urn and I suddenly found myself sobbing.

I sometimes think about what I will say about my brother on his wedding day, as I toast him and his bride, whomever she may be, because he gave the most amazing toast at mine. There are few people that I am as abundantly proud to say I know as him and looking back, I cannot believe that he still loves me.

I noticed one at Nordstrom that I actually could see myself wearing and somewhat comfortable in and then - I saw the label and the price. Of course I could be comfortable in it; it was a Juicy Couture and it was $170 dollars. Now generally, I don’t like Juicy Couture. I find it tacky for the most part. But this suit had a vintage twist on it and came it fabulous colors . . . I at least had the smarts not to try it on or I would have found myself wanting it even more.

Naturally, I’ll want to look good at the reunion. This is my mother’s side of the family and there are family members I haven’t seen since I was 17 or 14 or even 10. The majority of them were unable to fly out for my wedding last summer, so there is a good chance they still remember me as the little girl with curly hair in the Laura Ashley pink dress with poof sleeves and lace overlay. Yeah . . . time to update their recollection of me. Not to mention that there are new children of cousins that I have only ever seen pictures of.

It’s just item 12 on the list of reasons why to stay on the diet and lose the weight, no matter what. As if the reasons before that aren’t enough . . .

There are issues that I have to consider with my bathing suit, because A. I don’t have a toned enough tummy for a bikini and even if I drop another twenty pounds before I board that plane, I still won’t have a bikini-ready body. I don’t care what SELF magazine promises . . . every sit up in the world wouldn’t get me confident enough to be seen in something like this:

However, I do find something like this extremely do-able:

As for the pasty white skin, I will be stocking up again on the Neutrogena Ultra Sheer Helioplex Sunblock. I actually spotted it in SPF 85 a few weeks ago . . . so sweet.

I only get this one above because of Mike and his "Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy" devotion

Here we are, five years past my return from California and this week that we are currently in (April 5th - 12th) is what I would probably refer to as my "Hell Week", if I were to compare it to the "Holy Week" of Christianity with Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday. Because at that time and still looking back now, I don’t think I have ever been as miserable as I was in that specific week of my life.  The end of the end was unbearable and I know now that I am only that much stronger and smarter because of it. But had you come to me, five years ago today and told me about my life currently, where I am, who I am with and what all I am doing, I never would have been able to comprehend it. Seriously, I couldn’t see past getting up in the morning, going to work, coming home and not entirely falling apart. Which I am sure I did, more than once.

1. Reach and maintain my personal goal weight

2. Clean up my credit and live within my (our) means

3. Learn and master as much of my chosen career as possible

4. Buy a house

5. Buy a Nikon camera

6. Take photography classes

7. Get a (shelter) dog

8. Put together my own scrapbook

9. Go to Hawaii with my husband

10. Meet Mike’s relatives in California and North Dakota

11. Spend a weekend with my work email buddy, sipping wine and having plenty of good laughs

12. Go to Vegas as a legal adult

13. Learn to let some things go

14. Stop criticizing myself so much

15. Spend a weekend in Phoenix with Jenn

16. Maintain a more organized house

17. Continue to grow my recipe collection

18. Keep my hens and chicks collection growing

19. Keep blogging my heart out, especially with interesting topics and not just lists and surveys

20. Get a cholesterol test. It’s been too long.

21. Go on a weekend trip with Sarah and Vanessa, if I can pull them away from their families for that long.

22. Pay off our debts and feel more secure about our finances.

23. Write my novel. Seriously.

24. Clean out my wardrobe of anything I haven’t worn in the last year. What’s the point in keeping it?

25. Become better at managing my time.

26. Read more books.

27.  Stay in better contact with my long distance friends.

28. Become the kind of person that people want to know.

29. Keep the fire burning between my husband and I.

Seriously, y’all, this was hard. I had twenty pages to work with and over 500 photos to choose from. I couldn’t decide if I should do twenty pages of just one shot on each page or attempt to use the more scrapbook type templates to fit as many pictures as I possibly could onto each page. Should I use all candid shots, all posed - all color, black and white, sepia? What about all the pictures of our friends and family dancing? Are there enough of each of us alone and together? The bridesmaids and groomsmen? The family? To make matters more difficult, the parent albums are just smaller reproductions of what I put together. So a year from now, ten years, twenty, my parents and in-laws will only have what I put together to show off (unless they purchased their own photos from the photographer). Are they the ones that I want or the ones that I think my mother will want? Perhaps I am the one adding all the pressure onto myself, but it had me freaked out, nonetheless.