March 2021

One of the greatest days of this month was this day.

I have made many dear friendships with the sisters in the FLDS community.

I have a very close bond with about 15 of them and they mean a lot to me.

I have come to know their spirits.

Because they trust me, which is rare, given that I am a gentile, they share things with me and I am so happy about that.  These girls are the Harker Girls.  None of them are married, nor do they have any prospects and they range in age from 20 to 28.  

They are just hard workers and they work so hard for me and make my job so much easier.

They came over this day to drop some gifts off to my mom and me that they had home made, of course and they came to her house to give them to us.

AND THEY ALL CAME INSIDE.

This doesn't happen.

Like ever.

But, they came in to Nana's house and Marticia (who is as near to a perfect woman as I have ever met) played my mom's piano and my mom and I cried.  We cried because we have worked on these relationships for years and these women don't trust very many people... but they love us.  I felt so blessed that they like us enough to come to our houses and spend the afternoon with us.

I consider them sisters

When my husband says....  "I think we should take our picture together"  

I jump.

So this church day, we were asked to give the prayer in Sacrament Meeting and a fun fact about me is I would rather speak in General Conference than pray in Sacrament Meeting.  I VERY relunctantly agreed because of the gentle prodding of my husband accompanied with a "you can do hard things" pep talk.  Getting ready for church came with it a wide range of emotions from yelling at everyone for not doing this or that to crying because I couldn't get my eye liner line straight after 5 tries.

Even if it was not my best hair day and I am 10 pounds overweight, I posed for a very rare photo opp with my very best man.

One of the projects that we are working on for the backyard is restoring a free fire pit that we picked up from one of the houses at Paradise Village a year or more ago.

A shameless defect in my personality is the thrill that overcomes me whenever I get my hands on anything FREE.  I love free things.

My friends told me today that, this very mentality is how hoarding starts.

I can see that...  but another defect I have which is much more dominant is I am also an anti pack rat.  So I throw away as much as I collect.  I essentially trade my free old stuff for my free new stuff.

Balance.

So, we have been storing the pit for a long time and we are slowly getting it up to par

It's a slow process, but who cares?

It'll look so cute when it is finished

Since we are on the FREE subject...

Uncle Jamie called us one Saturday and said

(Oh I wish you could hear my Uncle Jamie impression)

How Doo....

How's my favorite nephew?

You know Rals, the church is true.

But, anyway....

So I am leaving Fashion Place Mall right now....where I was wandering around just passing some time and I saw that Janie and Jack was giving some free stuff away from their store that is going under (I feel so badly about that for them.....but their loss is our gain) because I said that my nephew is a master carpenter and could turn their display furniture into works of art if they were to give it to me for free...  and they said come on in here and take all of this free stuff out and give it to your nephew.  And so you know what I did Ral?  I ran across the street and tried to rent a u-haul.  But, to my dismay, I found out that my license had expired.  So, I struck a deal with the u-haul guy, who drove me in his own truck over to the mall helped me load up the furniture from the store and he delivered it and me to my carport where I am going to load it up into a very large van as soon as I am legal again and I'll bring this stuff down to you and I want you to fix it up and put it in your house and enjoy it forever.

And of course, I'm going YESSSSS.  

Say yes.

And in a week's time, he made good on his word and he backed a GIGANTIC Sprinter van into our driveway at 10:00 pm on a Tuesday night and said 

"Rals, call some of your neighbors over to help us unload this stuff and we will all have hernias when we are done it is so freakin' heavy".

And poor Jake from across the street came over and they unloaded it in our garage and we can't even move around in there now. 

This stuff is so big, it won't fit in our house anywhere.

BUT IT WAS FREE!!!

This piece below is 7 feet tall and weighs 200 lbs

There is NOTHING better than a dark snowy Friday.

I loved this day so much.

The kids sent me pictures from home

I took photos from my office window where I was cozy with my space heater blarring

And this is what it looked like at Arcadia

We had two precious guests ask for refunds because it was snowing.

Who does that?

"Um yeah, we don't think we should have to pay for our vacation because it's snowing"

IDIOTS

"How can we swim in these conditions? There is steam coming off the water.  We think we should be entitled to some sort of refund for this inconvenience."

I promise this happened.

I can't make this stuff up.

I have a tumor.  Or maybe a cyst is more accurate...  growing in the middle of my forehead.

And as it grows , I can only imagine that it is what is causing my skull to split.

 I, of course, am only assuming that it is growing because I actually have no real evidence to support it since I can't get anyone to take me seriously enough to prescribe an MRI.

I am pretty certain that it is growing because I can literally feel the split in my bone in the middle of my forehead when I feel my head.

I can also feel it in the constant headaches that I am having in that exact spot.

I am on day 32 of a Tylenol regimine that is slowing turning into an addiction that is sure to completely destroy my liver at some point.  

I can't help it though, I need the drug in order to get through the days/nights.

I keep saying to myself, there are people who take HARD CORE drugs every day, surely Tylenol won't kill me.

You're asking yourself...  "um why don't you go see a doctor?"

Well...  I have.

He told me to monitor it and didn't seem too worried.

Even though I have a sister who has had a glioblastoma.

Even though my dad has had a benign something-or-other removed from his head.

Even though I can literally feel the thing sticking out,

so it's not like I am hypochondiracally fabricating it.

It is, in fact, there.

I will probably at some point have to go to the emergency room and demand in a forceful, almost phychotic manner that an MRI be done... in order to get some answers.   I just need someone, anyone to acknowledge my illness....  But, until I can get up the courage to be one of those crazy people you see on Grey's Anatomy, I just have to silently suffer and be content with a lower quality of life.

Nevertheless.... Raleigh bought an eye massager for me, so that I can relax my face and hopefully decrease my head traumas.  And it is so pleasurable.  I am in a trance for about 20 minutes when it is over.  He also bought me "stress gummies" that we saw on a commercial for me to take when I start to go into hysertics over my certain fate....  which is either death OR surgical removal of this little problem which will leave a horrible scar in the middle of my forehead and will require me to have to have BANGS for the rest of my life.

Ryker mastered his times tables and so he was 

"Knighted"

It was a cute little ceremony

I am so happy that teachers still hug their kids

Well, Spring Breakers were filling up the calendars at Arcadia this month and my employees were also acting like Spring Breakers, so I found myself working TWENTY ONE days straight in the month of March.

I recently read something on Instagram that went something like this

"Employers have got to stop shaming their employees who call in sick

sometimes people just need to take care of their mental and emotional health"

And my first response to this is....

YOU KNOW YOU ARE A MILLENIAL WHEN YOU SAY CRAP LIKE THIS....

That and...  YOU OBVIOUSLY HAVE NEVER BEEN ANYWHERE NEAR A MANAGEMENT POSITION

It's understandable if someone's life has reached a breaking point for whatever reason, but take some responsibility... the emotionally challenged person should go to their boss and say, I am feeling overwhelmed in my personal life and I would like to schedule some time off next week, so that I might have some time to work on my mental and emotional health.  I wanted to give you enough notice so that you could properly schedule my absence.  

That is how it is done people, when you are responsible and mature.

Because, let's be honest.... we are ALL emotionally traumatized right now.  We are all needing to de-compress.  If you are feeling stressed out at work, I promise you, your boss probably wants to hit himself on the head with a hammer.  I know this is true from experience.  

But this calling me an hour before a shift (and I can tell there isn't an illness present) really freaking blows.

Because who suffers when you do that crap?

ME that's who.

Me and your co-workers who have already put in their time.

When I was a teenager and I found myself needing to take a day off, I had to FIND A REPLACEMENT first!

Someone to cover my shift. 

And if I couldn't find someone to cover me, I had to show up or I would no longer have a job.

That's how is was in the good ole days.

I had an employee last year who called me at 9:00am one Sunday and said he wouldn't be able to come in to work at 11:00 because it was General Conference.  

So, when I said, "oh well don't come in for any of your other shifts then",

he responded...  "You'll hear from my attorney"

And I almost believed that this person who worked a good solid 12 hours a week probably had some sort of an attorney on retainer who would step in and fight for his client's religious rights with all of his might in this predominantly LDS community.

Good-Ness

Sadly, Gus no longer works for me.

I literally can't stand what we (and by we, I mean HR) has done to this generation.

I am beyond livid.

And I am so tired.

GROW UP!!!

This was Sunday the 28th

Thank you.... my ELEVEN year old child

and my TEN year old child for filling in for Brenda who was emotional.

Apologies to anyone, who is now offended, but I am on day 39 working with a borderline migraine.

And.....  my emotional and mental health IS at its breaking point.

Take some Tylenol and get to work.

You babies.

I'd personally like to HAVE A DAY OFF.

I only have to buy Peyton a skateboard and KK wants a new lunch box for payment.

I could not have done it without them.  They are tiny girls, but they worked so hard for me.  

They had the time of their lives driving golf carts and folding bath towels.

I always lose it in March.

It's crazy how insane it gets really fast.

I want to say it was horrible.... but I can't.   Even though I worked my buns off, it was very rewarding.  

We are now on week 7 in a row of being fully booked and we have not had ONE guest complaint.

Every single review was a FIVE star review.

That is phenominal.  We must be doing something right.

One of the biggest "rights" are my parents, who work SO hard every single day doing post-clean inspections.  My mom keeps me on track and catches and fixes so many wrongs.

One day she sent me this picture

And said "we found this under the bed"

And it gets worse

And then she said...

This is what we call "inspector job security"

Can you imagine if a guest checked in and found this under a bed?

I would freak out.

My mom looks under no less than 200 beds a week and my dad cleans at least 50 BBQs a month not to mention everything in between...

no wonder we don't get bad reviews, they fix all of the problems before they occur.

I know that we cannot ride this wave forever.  

There is bound to be a Karen or two in our future very soon.

But, when that happens, everyone will know that this is not the norm.  There must have been a fluke situation and that makes me feel so good.  We have worked really hard to make so many changes that have made processes so much more efficient and the standards have been set and raised and set again. I love when people notice that and take the time to tell us.  It makes all the hard work so worth it.  

On the last day of the month, my boss gave me a gift certificate to 

A DAY SPA

I think I just may schedule an appointment for someone to gently massage my protruding forehead for an hour.

Raleigh spends all of his spare time (which isn't much, being it is the end of the quarter)... building the retaining wall.  As soon as he can bust through 2 gigantic boulders 

he will be able to complete the first row.  The first row is so hard because every brick has to be leveled and securely placed.  After that is complete it is just a stacking game and progress is very quick

We finally had warm weather and no wind in the last couple days of the month so he was able to work hard.  He will feel such a huge sense of accomplishment when this is done...  not only that he did it himself, but that he saved so much money and it looks like a professional did it.  

Our ward split on the 21st.  It is such a strange experience to be going through again for the second time in 18 months where EVERYONE in the ward is released and NO ONE has a calling.

It seems like we will get to start going back to church like normal soon.  That will be good for all of us.  

I plan to take some time off in the next couple of weeks and my husband and I will lay in the lounge chairs and listen to music and get some color on our legs because tan fat looks so much better than white fat.

While we lay there, we will talk in the past tense about first quarter and how it is behind us and how we somehow managed to survive and then we will choose one selfish thing that we will spend a tiny portion of our bonus checks on... 

I think I want to buy myself some grey sandals

and something to go in my gargantuan seven foot armoire

💗