Life As We Know It

A lot of things have been going on over here in our neck of the woods.  I would describe it as the best of times and the worst of times.  Definitely times that are worth mentioning. 

I went to the dentist and they had forgotten that they rescheduled me to the new date and time.  I was "fit" into the schedule and luckily dodged the normal dental hygienist that cleans my teeth until my teeth hurt.  Not my gums, my teeth.  And the pain lasts usually a day or so.  She is obsessed with flossing and so when she flosses you while she is cleaning for your check up, it seems like she pulls out a yard of floss.  The woman means business.  This visit, the dentist did the cleaning and the check up and I was out in half the time with no pain.  Woowee!  And yes, I got my normal ego boost with the new question "do you whiten your teeth?"  Nope, this is all Nat-u-Ral!  Followed by the same reaction of all..."Wow!"  Ha!

My car pool kids are like characters from a book.  L who sits in the back with Shae and another little girl has only the volume of extremely loud when he speaks.  In fact, he screams all his conversations.  I finally had to say something to him because my ears hurt so bad and he screamed back at me that it was a "free country."  To which I replied, yes, but you are in my car, my private property, my rules.  You can't abide my rules, you don't get a "free" ride in this "free country."  It has worked a bit.  My other favorite is G who sits up front with me.  He likes to adjust all my buttons, the seat, lock the doors and control the radio.  When I took that privilege away from him, he started bringing his own IPOD to listen to.  This kid full on dances in the front seat of my car and I can't help but watch.  I can only imagine what sight it must be to see him "jamming out" in my car ride EVERY DAY.  It's like his own personal party and he's the only one invited.  Party on my friend, party on!

My Relief Society did our Christmas dinner early this year.  I really liked it.   We always do a progressive dinner around the room.  I really love this idea because I can talk to a lot more people.  My friend Renee shared with me 4 challenges that Elder Hales gave to her and the employees of the Church Office Building and it has been an amazing experience to accept his challenges.  We are striving for a very simplistic, Christ-like Christmas and his counsel has made a huge difference.  By the way, wasn't the First Presidency Christmas Devotional AMAZING!!  Those talks were so personal to me, I have been re-watching the devotional all this week.  How lucky we are to be lead by Prophets, Seers and Revelators.  I felt the Spirit so strongly and was in awe that Shaeler listened and felt it too.

This weekend was really hard for me.  Sometimes, I fight small bouts of depression or I am dealing with so much stress that all I can do to release the emotions is to cry, and cry, and cry at the drop of a hat.  This last weekend was one of those times.  As I am having a nervous break down, Shae comes running in from a swimming excursion with a friend and hands me half of her front tooth, which she broke off in a fall.  The tooth is a permanent tooth.  By then, I couldn't handle the emotions and I just cried even harder.  I bawled as I left a message for the dentist and made Brian call a friend to at least get some more counsel.  My dentist called back thankfully after I calmed down.  He told me to place the tooth in a glass of milk and because she was in no pain or did not any nerve exposure, she could wait to see him when he got back into the office.  Shaeler proudly showed off her broken tooth at church and at school.  On Tuesday morning, I took her in and watched her calmly lay there as the dentist glued back her tooth on which much drilling and metal flossing.  I quietly sat in the corner and cried as I had some spiritual lessons being taught to me.  I can't help it.  The dentist says that we are not out of the woods yet and that she will have check ups to monitor the tooth.  Yay, more dentist bills!  My life is a gift!!

Last week, Brian signed up to be part of the Salt Lake Home Builders Association.  It is a great organization for him to network for his business and an organization that stands up and protects his rights as a contractor in the government.  We were invited to their Christmas Dinner which was a formal affair at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.  They were doing a fundraiser for the Make a Wish Foundation and it was a plated formal dinner that was very expensive.  When we arrived, we met bankers, owners of dealerships, big contractors in the Salt Lake valley, other sub-contractors, and ran into a couple of old friends.  We were like fish out of water.  They were doing a silent auction for Ginger Bread houses in the back of the room where a few were the starting bid at $100 a piece.  We bought a few extra raffle tickets as they were giving out awesome prizes during the dinner and wanted to contribute to the Make-A-Wish foundation.  As we sat down, every seat had a small gift to thank us for attending the dinner.  I got chocolate covered oreos and Brian got chocolate Carmel covered pretzel sticks.  FOR THE LOVE!! 2 of my absolute favorites!!  Woowee!  The dinner was delicious and gorgeous.  Totally a cheat meal and a half and it was worth every bite.  The raffle for the prizes began and I thought for sure we would be lucky to even get one prize.  Our friends sitting next to us had over 25 tickets, surely they will walk home with lots of prizes.  I watched vacuums, blue ray players, chocolate fountains, spa gifts, all of these amazing prizes being handed out.  Then I heard Brian's name called. 

He won an entertainment system to hold our IPAD to play movies in the back of the car for Shae.  Alright!  We won something!  More and more names were called and lots of people got amazing gifts.  They got down to the last prizes which were the biggest prizes of the night.  A Party for 14 friends for pedicures.  A Nitro Circus gift basket with signed helmet.  A Garmin GPS system, which oh, by the way, they pulled Brian's name out again and he won that too!  Finally, they pulled out the grand prize of a 32" flat screen smart tv and once again, Brian's name was called as the winner.  I just sat there in shock!  Here we are one of the new kids on the block, fish out of water, walking away with an entertainment system, a Garmin GPS and a flat screen tv.  Oh, we got teased by everybody but let me tell you, all those people knew who Brian Rentmeister the Electrician was and I was proud.  We laughed all the way home.  What on earth are we going to do with this tv?  We don't watch very much television.  HA!  The tag on the box that people usually label the name of the receiver on said "To:  I won!"  LOL!! Oh well!  It was quite the experience I will never forget.