Yeah For Scentsy!

I had a Scentsy party today and I sold over 200$ worth of product! I love it! It was so fun just to be with the girls and enjoy one another's company! Today we are going to hang out as a family and just have a good time. We are going to go out and deliver catalogs but that is fun for us because the kids ride their bikes and we all get out! It is 73 degrees today and it is beautiful!

Thank Goodness...

Thank goodness for friends that know when you just need to get out. I was going to stay home tonight and read my Twilight books while Matt watched wrestling but my friend Annmarie "dragged" me out to a movie. It was just what I needed. We saw "New in Town." It was a good show but it was no "Twilight." Although I had a good time I am glad to be back home with my husband. I miss him a lot when we are apart. We are doing pretty great for 7 WHOLE :) years of marriage. We had a rocky start but he is my best-friend now and I wouldn't have it any other way. Well, better get to bed. I have a Scentsy party here tomorrow and I am hoping that all will go well. I am working very hard on launching this and my cute husband has been so supportive.

Taxes UGHHH!

I have spent the last two days trying to figure out my taxes and I finally sent them off tonight. I am sure I did the state ones all wrong and so I am hoping that all they will do is fix it for me. They have done this in the past and so I can hope. If we get audited who cares!!!!!!! I mean what are they going to take? We have nothing right now. Money is more than tight and we are just praying for a miracle. It is so frustrating when you do everything you can to live sensibly and follow the counsil of the prophets and so on and you get screwed!

What a day

I have been doing much better this week but today is a little overwhelming. Matt and I have decided that it would be best if I did not get a part-time job but focus on Scentsy as well. I am so excited about this. I know it's hard work and it takes patience but I love it. I am hosting a Scentsy event at my house this Saturday and I am hoping for a great turn out. My awesome Director's husband is working diligently on web pages for us and you can now find me on google! It has brought in online orders from people I've never contacted before! I can't wait for all of this to get up and going. From what I have seen it has been a major success for my director and I am determined to have that same success! Matt is going to start donating plasma 2 times a week to keep us afloat in the meantime. They won't take my plasma because I have had brain surgery. I guess you could say there is just so much going on in my mind today but it's a good day. It's beautiful outside and the kids and I are going to go for a walk and pass out catalogs! Check out my website if you are interested in Scentsy. I have 2 and you can find them on the right side of the blog!

Babies Know!

I thought this was classic! Make sure to scroll all the way down to the last picture. I know by posting this I am going to have some angry followers! This is the first time I have really felt passionate about an election and I am so thankful for the President that we have right now. I may shoot myself in the foot later like I wanted to after voting for Bush but if the babies like Obama then he's got to be a good guy!

Our Family Day!

Matt is home from work today and I am so grateful! Nora is sick and so it has been nice to have him home for support. We decided to all walk to the park, even Nora because she isn't running a fever anymore. Ivan and Matt threw the football which is something Ivan has been asking him to do for a long time. It got pretty cold though so we opted to come home for naps instead. Here are some pictures of our little adventure.

Sick Baby

Well, so much for going to dinner at my visiting teachers house. Nora woke up with a fever and then promptly threw up all over me. I swear it seems like that child is always sick. I always end up staying home with her if it's on a Sunday because I don't want to be away from her but I know people think I am inactive. Since we have moved into our house it has been one illness after another. It get's very tiring. The good news is that they increased some of my medication again and I have been able to sleep very well and I no longer sleep in until 11am on the weekends. I am up by 8 am with my husband and I feel good.

A Good Weekend So Far!

So Matt had half day of work yesterday and he has Monday off! I am so excited to be able to spend extra time with him. After he came home yesterday we helped the kids with their chores and then we took them to Walmart to rent a redbox movie. We had our friend Annmarie out to watch movies. She is a fellow Hanjin transfer and has become a very good friend of mine. She and I get together to have movie nights. She ended up spending the night because we watched movies until really late. Today She and Matt and I all hung out and worked around the house. We have taken it really easy. The funnest part of the day was when we pulled the pool out and let the kids swim! Can you believe that! Swimming in January! It was in the mid 70's and we were too hot playing outside so out came the water. The best part was that the water coming out of the hose was warm and so the kids had a blast! I will post pics later. I am so excited that we still have tonight, all day tomorrow and Monday to be together! I love having my hubby home!

January Scentsational Special

Time is running out to order January's Scentsational Special! The warmer of the month and the scent of the month as seen on this flier are 10% off. It is a perfect Valentine gift!

An Invite!

I am very excited. My visiting teacher just called (finally) and invited me and my family to dinner on Sunday. I went to the relief society president a couple of weeks ago and told her that I needed some VT's that would come. Sure enough here they are! I am excited. I have been extremely depressed. we're talking pray my way out of bed and cry all day depressed. I just didn't see any reason to keep fighting. To top it all off I hadn't slept in over a week and I was sure I was dying. I nearly gave up but with the help of my wonderful husband and some great doctors here in AZ I am finally feeling a little bit better. Today is the first day in a long time that I actually did anything around the house. They increased some of my meds and changed some of the others and today I feel a difference. I hope that it will remain this way, I can't go back to the darkness I was feeling.

A Fun Night

We had the missionaries over for dinner and we had a great time. They were really refreshing and great with the kids.

Taking a break...

I've decided to take a break from sanity for a while. Not sure when I'll be back. I'll post if I feel like it, I won't if I don't. Probably won't be answering the phone much either so leave messages and when I get back I'll deal with it.

Yet Another Goodbye

Torrie and Christy came into town yesterday and were planning on staying through the weekend and possibly through all of next week. They came down to purchase our van and drive it back to Tooele. Well, we found out that Christy's husband starts training for work on Sunday and so they are leaving first thing in the morning. He does not have a car and so they have to get the van back to Tooele so he can get to work. It is such a bummer because they just got here. It has been great for Claire and Torrie to play though. I am glad that they could come but as usual it is always hard when they have to leave. Othere than that we are doing well. I have been busy helping a friend of mine build a network to put an end to some "legal Stalking" that she has been going through and just focusing on my kids. Claire met with a new psychiatrist at the Phoenix Children's Hopsital and the visit went awesome. They are going to be a lot of help, I can tell. We started her on some new medication and they said we should see an improvement in 2-3 days. We will keep our fingers crossed. Well, that's all for now, it's been a very long day and I need to get to bed.

Disgusted!

I cannot believe that this happens! I was searching for some help regarding someone that I love very much who is going through this exact thing. I was shocked and suprised to see that what she is going through is not single to her. I had never heard of anything like it but through extensive research here is some of what I have found: http://www.owjn.org/issues/stalking/legalbully.htm

Stalking by Court: Legal Bullying and What Can Be Done About It
by Pamela Cross, January 6, 2005

The Ontario Women's Justice Network hears from many women who have left abusive partners only to find the abuse continue post-separation. Most often, the abuse takes the form of stalking.

For many women, especially those with children, misuse of family court by their former partner is a common strategy. Sometimes called "legal bullying" ("Legal Bullying: Abusive Litigation within Family Law Proceedings", Esther L. Lenkinski, Barbara Orser, Alana Schwartz, 22 C.F.L.Q., 337), this form of harassment can take a number of forms. For example, the ex-partner may:

fail to obey court orders

bring repeated motions on already decided issues

appeal decisions even when there is no hope of success

make complaints about various professionals involved in the process (lawyers, judges, mediators, family assessors, etc.)

seek repeated delays with no real grounds for this

represent himself when there is no financial need to do so

repeatedly change lawyers, thus slowing the process down

withhold information (such as financial disclosure) or insist on unreasonable disclosure from the other party

make malicious reports to the court and other officials (child protection authorities, housing personnel, Ontario Works, etc.) about the woman.

This harassment is extremely problematic to the victim:

She may have real fears for her physical safety at the hands of her abuser which are exacerbated by ongoing contact with him.

This bullying may follow years of psychological abuse within the relationship, which makes her very vulnerable to him.

She may concede on issues against her better judgment, simply to make the harassment stop. In some cases, these concessions could jeopardize the safety of her and/or her children.

She will almost certainly incur legal costs she can ill afford, if she is required to return to court again and again to respond to his vexacious motions, appeals etc.

If she has to represent herself, she may have to take repeated time away from work and will have to participate in ongoing contact with her abuser - direct contact if he has chosen to represent himself - which could be very dangerous for her.

If his tactics include calling child protection authorities, her Ontario Works worker and others, she (and the children) may be required to undergo repeated investigations by these officials.

Her employer, if she is working, may not be willing to keep an employee who is constantly distracted by legal problems.

The children will also be affected by the ongoing tension and uncertainty of repeated court proceedings.

Of course, the overall goal of the abuser is to maintain his control over his former partner and prevent her from moving on with her life. Legal bullying is very effective at achieving this goal, as the woman usually has no choice but to respond to the legal initiatives or allegations of the abuser.

The nature of family law makes it difficult to deal with a legal bully. By definition, no case involving children is ever truly over. Legitimate, significant changes in the circumstances of either parent or the children can make it necessary to change court orders. For example, a final child support order must be open to revision in the event that the payor experiences a significant change - either up or down - in his income. A custody order will change if, say, the custodial parent is no longer able to care for the child for health or other reasons. Access will change if either party has to move such that the present arrangement would no longer be feasible.

Because of this open-ended nature of family law, it is easy for an abuser to find ways to manipulate the system and the process to keep control over his former partner.

There are some potential legal strategies for dealing with harassment of this sort:

The Family Law Rules give judges the authority to make orders with respect to procedural matters such as disclosure of financial information.

New case management processes make it more difficult to endlessly delay proceedings.

The Rules of Civil Procedure allow judges to make contempt orders against parties who act in defiance of court procedures or orders (Rule 60.11) and can order the bully to pay all the costs of the victim when he brings harassing matters in front of the court (Rule 57) - although collecting on these cost orders is another matter.

Judges can also make an order, under section 140 of the Courts of Justice Act, to prohibit a party from instituting further court proceedings without specific permission from the court. Often the judge will identify the bully as a "vexatious litigant" in such a case.

Strategies for women are also listed here.

However, because of the nature of family law, many judges are reluctant to move quickly to cut off a party's right to bring matters before the court. As well, just as with criminal harassment, it often takes a long time before the harassing behaviour forms a pattern that is identifiable to an outsider. In the meantime, the lives of the woman and her children suffer serious and negative effects.

If violence against women and abuse within families were better understood by everyone involved in the family court system (lawyers, mediators, assessors, court clerks, judges, legal aid staff) they would be able to identify these patterns more quickly and to move more quickly to control the actions of an abuser.

Until that time, as the authors of the above-noted paper conclude:

"The result of protracted legal bullying . . . is simply that bullies win. They are able to control the court system in order to harass and pursue their victims without an effective or expedient resolution to address this behaviour."
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Thank Heaven for Little Boys???

Like most every day, Ivan was up at the crack of dawn. My loving husband always gets up with him because my body just does not function before 8am. After Matt went to work, Ivan was having one breakdown after another. I finally made him go back to bed with me around 9am. He wanted to lay on my bedroom floor and I couldn't keep my eyes open so I did not protest. When we woke up 2 hours later, he looked like this...



Personally I think he looks like the head character from "Lord of the Flies," or at least a poor interpretation of him. Unfortunately Ivan was not the only target og his mischief. He got the carpet and the dog too! Thank heaven for stain resistant carpet and some wonderful and cheap spot remover that we got at Home Depot. Lucky for Ivan it came out of the carpet.

Job Hunting

So I have been looking for a job this weekend and I must say that it is very discouraging. I filled out an application for the local grocery store almost a month ago and nothing...It feels like I have been so out of the loop for so long that there is no hope of getting a job now. I am also limited by my hours at home and so I feel like all strikes are againts me. I will just have to apply anywhere that I can think of and then pray that something will come along that will not interfere with being a stay at home mom.

Almost "Normal"

Today is a good day. I almost feel normal today! I guess it all depends on what "normal" is but let's just say I am up, showered dressed, my bed is made (which never seems to happen lately), we have been to the store and got Claire's hair cut and I swept and mopped the downstairs and got dinner in the crock pot. Oh I guess I should also point out that it is only 10:23am! I am so proud of myself! This has been the first day in a very long time that I haven't wanted to just curl up in bed and sleep the day away! I am so thankful for this day.

Feeling a little better...

Well, today was a hard day but toward the end I started to fell a little better. I think there have been two things going on here. I have not felt well due to some withdrawl from a medication that I was forced to go off of during a lapse in doctors whith the move. With the physical hurt and fatigue I was dealing with our first Christmas away from the only home we ever knew. So depression came into play. I have struggled with depression from the age of 13. I think the two were just feeding and are still feeding on one another. I get to go to a new doctor this week and I am hoping that it will make things a little better. I am contacting my psychiatrist and seeing if he can get me in early to re-evaluate me. I need help. I am usually a very functional person but lately, every little "crisis" that happens in our home sends me to the deepest darkest place that is hard to come back from. My instinct to flee back to what is comfortable surfaces and it is all I can do not to jump in the car and race away from all of this. The point is that I am tired of fighting this but I am still going to fight it. I want to feel better. I don't want to be the zombie that I have been for the last two weeks. My daughter came to me tonight and asked me if I was not sick anymore. I told her that mommy may never get better but I was trying. I meant physically and mentally. She was sad and said that she wanted me to get better. I told her that when Jesus comes again I will have a perfect body. I told her that she was not sick and that is what is important. I told her that she will have to do some of the fun things for me but I will always be wanting to and be there to watch her. Anyway, enough rambling but I have been hiding this for too long. I have been trying to pretend that I was okay but I am not. I am a wreck but I want to get better. So although I don't make resolutions for the new year, I have hope that this new year I will continue to want to get better, physically and emotionally.

New Years with "Edward and Bella"

So my whole family was asleep by 8pm on New Years Eve. I was ticked that Matt fell asleep with the kids and left me alone. So instead of celebrating with family, I spent New Years Eve reading the Twilight series. I don't know why I was ticked at Matt because he had been up since 5 that morning. I wasn't all that interested in staying up to watch the ball drop either. I was grateful when they showed the ball drop at midnight in New York and it was 10pm here. It was very uneventful but at least I had a good book to read. I am on the 4th book and I plan on starting all over again when I am done. I can't wait for the movie to be released on DVD so that I can buy it!