PICTURES!!! FINALLY!!! (but not before a big huge rant)

I've been trying not to just be a huge whiner on here lately. I feel like I have to try hard to not just say "homelessness sucks" over and over and over. There are so many good things about this situation, but honestly, you have no idea how much we all take our homes, our very own homes for granted. I for one get a lot of my own personal sense of accomplishment from doing things around my house, things that can't really be done at someone else's. I have been trying to continue working out, working on my garden, keeping up our normal lives & schedules, but it just feels fake.
Yesterday I had a minor breakdown. I just feel so overwhelmed with decisions and at the same time feel completely in limbo and at the SAME time feel completely overbooked. Seriously, it's been from miscarriage to wedding cake to San Diego to flooding to moving into Susie's to my parent's homecoming and my nephew's wedding with all manner of family in town to photo sesh to cabin trip to making nephew's wedding cake to cake consultations to driving to Idaho tomorrow (with a cake!) then other nephew's priesthood ordinations to driving home to picking up my BFF's dog to watch for a week then up to the cabin to relax which I will undoubtedly not be able to do because I will be thinking about all the crap going on at my house & the fact that I should NOT be up at the cabin when my house needs decisions made if we ever want to move back in. (holy run on sentence, Batman!) And the dog. Don't even get me started on that issue. She was what put me over the edge yesterday, just contemplating a life without my Charlie. Don't worry, it's not happening, but for a minute there, I couldn't see any way around it. But this all may have something to do with the fact that I haven't been taking my happy pills because I am petrified that they are what is causing me to miscarry. (despite the fact that my doctor assures me that they are not.) But the honest truth is this: I can't really do it right now without Prozac. I can admit that. The few days that I wasn't taking them (because the amount of exhausted I was lead me to believe that I might be preggers) I had some icky fights with myself, my husband & Sawyer. The fact that I haven't been making it to the gym this week doesn't help. AT ALL. I need those happy little endorphins that I get from working up a sweat. I need that hour of vacant brain time, where my mind shuts the hell up and I get to listen to my muscles scream instead. Anyway, things are a bit rough around the edges right now, but they will smooth out. Reading NieNie never hurts to put things into perspective.
So now I will reward the one or two of you who have made it this far with some belated pics of Sawyer & I's trip to San Diego, of the damn flood and of things that make me happy.
You don't know joy until you see Sawyer at the beach. No joke.
This literally was one of the best days of my life. Ever. Just me & my girl cruisin' the Pacific Coast Highway and stopping whenever we wanted for whatever we wanted. B.L.I.S.S.
The only thing that could have made it better is if Daddy would have been able to be with us. Regardless, that trip was just what I needed.
We probably walked two miles to get to this park only to find it in disrepair and closed. Sad.
On our last day, we had some time to kill & decided to spend it at the "castle temple" just snuggling in the grass & watching brides & bridal parties.
This is what that whole week felt like to me. Just contentment. Thank you, baby girl for a wonderful time. Thank you, Daddy for letting encouraging us to go (and footing the bill).
And you know what is even better? This wasn't even half of the fun we had! The first part of the week was with Jessica & Max & all their Cali buddies; who are now our buddies as well. But when I'm with Jess, I don't dare take pictures because she'll make fun of me for using my flash & being so dumb with my amazing camera, so you'll have to go here to see all that.
And now for pictures of the flood damage. Are you ready? Please remember that we just finished the basement like fourteen minutes before this happened.All our shish in the garage thanks to our amazing neighbors.The beautiful Mammoth sofa. Dead.The sad, sad state of our drywall.
Anyway, most of that is fixed now, we just need to clean out all the cabinets so they can be ripped out upstairs and get the carpet/laminate guy scheduled, then the new cabinets can go in & then we can go back in! Yay! Here are other things that made me say Yay lately.
Mom & Dad coming home!

(Is that not the best picture ever? I love these two guys beyond all words.)

My peony bush deciding to give it another go this year!!!The tree I planed last year that surprises us with a new shade of pink each season.And these two.But not these. Yucky. Never go there again. hard as rocks cupcakes es no bueno.OH! And Monday night was pretty good too. But Lola blogs about it better than I ever could, so do a little clicky-click HERE to see.

the ugly, the bad & the good

the ugly:

my house all torn up and sad and empty

the bad:

yesterday Sawyer tested positive for dog and horse allergies; her two favorite animals

the good: 

that we found this out while out house was all torn up.  We will be able to replace the dog-dander covered carpet with hardwood floors (love) that don't collect allergens as much.  Charlie is currently at Matt's brother's training to be an outside dog, which will have to be what she is once we move back in.  She can still sleep in our room with us at night though.  Unless of course Matt is also allergic to dogs which is actually very likely.  There's got to be some explanation for the amount of phlegm he wakes up with.  (thank you Celeste for that lovely visual.)

Things are going well though, the drywall, trim & painting will be done tomorrow, and then we can work on flooring & cabinets.  Good deal.

I married a hottie

Tonight Matt gets to go on his dream golf trip to Seattle. It sounds like it's going to be sooooo much fun, and he will be with his boyfriend Danny, so I'm really excited for him. He totally deserves it. He is such a hard worker and so dedicated to making our lives fun and amazing. He is ridiculously generous and sweet and patient and thoughtful and patient and inspiring and kind and patient and supportive and patient and also very, very sexy. Let me illustrate my point. Last night we were watching America Idol while he packed for his trip and he kept bringing stuff up for me to fold for him because I am an excellent folder (thank you J. Crew). Anyway, at one point he came up looking something like this:Minus the guitar unfortunately, and not as wimpy looking, fortunately. What is it about a vest plus a t-shirt that slaaays me? Then he was packing his toiletry bag and decided to spray a little bit of this:

and there ya go. Put a fork in me, I'm done. I am the luckiest girl ever. I love you baby, I hope you have an amazing time and that you come home soon, wearing your vest & t-shirt & polo cologne. And then I will attack you.

I TOTALLY CALLED IT!!!!

Um, let's see? Who would you rather listen to/look at/put in your pocket/lick off a plate? This screamy fruit-cake? Or adorable, talented, humble, actually musical Kris Allen? Perhaps Kris will not win next week, but honestly, who cares at this point? Adam has had his moments, but I'm over it. He screams too much and is totally full of himself. Just remember that I called Kris my dark horse from day one; from the first time he licked his lips & busted out his guitar. Love, love, love. Please forgive me for making an entire post about American Idol, but I have very few truly productive things to do since I can't putter around my house. Well, alright. I'm going to bed now.

I have incredibly talented friends.

They make me look hot. The good thing about having nearly every one of my best friends be a photographer is that sometimes I get to be their model. A few weeks ago Jessica was doing a mentoring session with Katie, cool Katie from Sacramento, and I got to tag along and be a poser-poser. (get it? poser like impostor and poser like model? not funny? dang it.) Anyway, me likee. Here they are, you have to scroll down past the hot couple. I'm kind of obsessed with Katie now, she's funny & talented & beautiful & drove from Sacramento to SLC like 3 minutes after having her baby to mentor with Jessica. Cool, huh? Oh, and she looked freaking FABULOUS!! Not just fabulous for having recentley popped a baby out, but fabulous for anyone. and she likes good music.

Homelessness Sucks

I miss my house. I miss my dog. I miss my own kitchen. Doing a wedding cake in someone else's kitchen sucks. Not going to the gym sucks the most of all. I suppose I could still go to Preformax, but that adds an hour of drive time onto my already stupidly busy day. After this cake is done I am definitely doing it. Because not working out plus snitching on cake equals tubby Celeste. Not good for anyone. I kinda broke down today at Young Women's. I've been all okay about the house and stuff, but I swung by there tonight to pick up some stuff & it's just so depressing. I want my life back. I want to work on my garden & sleep in my bed & do my dishes & mop my floor & wash my windows & grocery shop & all the mundane, tedious tasks that all moms moan about. I want to do them at MY OWN HOUSE!!!! Wah-wah-wah, right? It sucks.
Thank you for letting me vent.
Oh, and guess what is the suckiest ever? Well, might be the suckiest ever. I think Sawyer is allergic to Charlie. Yeah. Her month long cold has been letting up since we haven't been around our dog for 2 weeks. We have an appointment with the allergist next week, I am so scared about this prospect. I would rather put up with a permanently snot nosed child than not have Charlie in our lives. Not even kidding.

WHOOOOAAAA, NELLY!!!!

k, so San Diego was amazing, just what I needed and wonderful beyond words. Spending time with Jessica & Max is always always great, but add a little Brittany and Owen, a few hours with Rachelle and Tracy and you've got a killer first half of the week. Then all I needed to round it all out was some serious bonding time with my little girl. (But don't tell her I called her that, she's a BIG girl!) It was fantastic.
Thursday was probably one of my favorite days of my entire life. We drove up to Santa Monica along the Pacific Coast Highway and just pulled over whenever we saw something that looked like fun; good surfers to watch, a beautiful beach, a nummy restaurant, whatev. When we got there we parked near the pier because I knew that the park we wanted to go to was somewhere near there, but after walking the wrong direction for a while, then probably almost a mile in the other, we found it and it was... oh... closed. Totally fenced off for some reason. But we found swings and sand and that's about all Sawyer requires to be ridiculously happy. Then there was some mild shopping at the 3rd street promenade (LOVE), but honestly, I was pretty freaking shopped-out thanks to Jessica. I didn't think that was possible. Then we had a lovely dinner at Cafe Crepe and headed back down to our condo in Solana Beach.
I can hardly talk about how good that trip was for me without getting emotional. I am such an impatient person, I've been feeling like I'm way behind on my "life-plan," you know? Most of my friends have 4 kids by now, and not that that is part of my plan, but seriously, my kid needs someone to play with. I want to move on to the next phase of our life. Anyway, just being with Sawyer with no schedule or demands really made me appreciate how wonderful she is. We were able to just really enjoy each other and bond. Totally what I needed, but we were so excited to see Daddy. Daddy makes everything fun. But I must mention that I kick butt at traveling by myself with the kid. I am an excellent packer/organizer. Yeah me.
But then we came home to a house that decided to spontaneously combust while we were gone. Matt was staying with Danny when a pipe in the kitchen burst, and our fantastic neighbors had to rescue our furniture from an inch & a half of water. Did I mention that we just finished the basement like ten minutes ago? Um, yeah. Anyway, it all dripped down there & destroyed the beautiful mammoth couch & Matt's birthday chair & the ottoman and the carpet and the walls and the ceiling. Sad. Sad, sad house. So we are staying at Susie's and I will be adding delightful and destructive pictures, respectively, at a later date.
Anyway, wish us luck in our homelessness. Happy Spring!