Not Sleeping

There are only a few things in this world that bug me as much as (or more than) not being able to sleep at night. This has been something I have struggled with most of my adult life.

I am exhausted as ever but as soon as I lay down in bed all I can think about is the endless list of things I need to do/haven't done/should do the next day. Falling asleep is usually the hardest part, but staying asleep is also pretty hard, especially now.

I have been having crazy dreams/nightmares that wake me up and bother me. Can't really shake some of them the next day. I usually have strange dreams, but pregnancy has shifted my wacko brain into a whole new realm of weird!

On a more positive note. I am so thrilled it is almost October. I am looking forward to the weather changing a bit, making Tiny a Halloween costume and finding out if this baby is a girl or a boy!

Made it back to AZ

We had 2 flights last night... one to Denver and straight from Denver to Phoenix. I don't like flying so putting me on 2 flights in a row was torture! I am thankful that we don't have any trips planned that involve flying for a long while.

I am still looking for a job, which is extra fun. I am hoping to find something at an assisted living home so it can count towards my internship credit I need to do this fall!

I am glad to be home and back in my own bed... Plus Tiny missed me greatly! haha

Moments of gratitude

"Recognize that the joy of motherhood comes in moments. There will be hard times and frustrating times. But amid the challenges, there are shining moments of joy and satisfaction." ~ Elder M. Russell Ballard May 2008

This thought brings a lot of peace to me tonight. I think this applies to more than just motherhood, it applies to us all, no matter where we are at in our life. I have been trying to focus more on being thankful for each moment I have. Its comforting to understand that their are hard times but that those hard times make the good times even more joyful.

What I have been doing since We moved

1. Actively being sick and probably contagious
2. Checking up on my elderly dog
   
3. Sewing
   
4. Making to do lists and not doing the things on them
5. Watching TLC, Food Network & MTV

Thats pretty much it. We have unpacked most of our stuff and have been swimming once. I have to say I have more bruises than I have ever had in my entire life. Not sure why, other than I guess moving. So many of my muscles hurt and I have been getting in bed by 8pm and laying around. I dislike being sick.

Its weird not to be at work because I am not on the internet very much now. Boring update, I know.

In other news, Dan's started his job and I am so excited for him... I only wish we had our cars down here already in order to make the mornings easier.Dan and I went to the APARN adoption day up in Glendale on Saturday to see some pugs. We put in papers to start fostering one of their pugs if we can. We fell in love with one really hyper pug who is 2 years old named Vincent. We would love to foster him, but who knows. His owners dropped him off with Aparn when were were there.

Wait... What

What am I going to do when I have no work to go to... have no more school work to finish... have no internship...

If I can get Health Insurance I know what I will do next. If not, then maybe I will find a cave and hibernate.

June Plans

Its official. We are moving in 6 weeks from tomorrow and are coming back up to Utah 8 weeks from today! haha I guess we can't stay gone for long! We just bought our plane tickets to come back up for our sealing!

Everything has just worked out that this is the best scenario, there was already so much done for our sealing in SLC that it would have been too much hassle to change it to Mesa. And it was best for us to start the job mid June. Oh well, it will be a wonderful weekend with the family and beautiful weather I hope.

We will spend our anniversary driving my Focus back down to Arizona on Sunday... We will be back late Sunday night in time for me to sit around all day Monday and relax on my 23rd birthday!

Cross your fingers

I got a few inklings of good news today... I am not going to count any eggs before they hatch but hopefully in the next week or so I will have tons to be excited about and will be more relaxed going into my last few months of school!!!

Hello April

I am so glad to see you!

April is here and that means a few wonderful things... there's less than 2 weeks of classes left! Finals are just around the corner! My mom will be here in 3 weeks and I walk at graduation! Dan and I will go through the Temple for the first time the next day and I am so excited. I will be (hopefully) done with my health statistics class by the end of this month and will only have 9 credits between me and my diploma (well I technically only need 6 of them)!

Dan and I went and got our oil changed this morning in both of our cars... sadly this is the first time I have changed my oil since we have been married... the last time was June 19th. Surprisingly enough I have only driven about 5,000 miles since that time. Very different from my first year with my car.

Speaking of my car, Stewie and I are celebrating our 2 year anniversary together. My mom and brother officially picked him up for me over April conference of 2007. I believe he had 39,000 miles on him at that point and now he has about 63,000. I went down to AZ to pick him up about a week later and on April 17th I got my first speeding ticket (it was my first day back in UT). Go Stewie! I love my little car and its been such a blessing to have my own car at school after the first 3 years of being carless.
In other news, we are back from our trip to AZ... it was fun. It was not long enough, and unfortunately I was worried about School while I was there. I can go without getting on a plane again for a while. We are hopeful that Dan will find a job, be it in AZ or UT. I just want him to have a job!

Reading Old Journals

I have kept a journal since the beginning of my Freshman year here at BYU. I have not looked at those old journals in a long long time. Yesterday I took an hour or so to look through them. Sometimes I think about burning them and other times I look back and see how much I have grown.

I realized last night that all the heart felt pain I experienced was only for my good. I thought back to some crummy times living here and had honestly forgotten some of them. As I read it was like little doors to my memories opening up and thinking, "Oh ya, that happened?! Why did I do that!?"

I often talked about feeling alone and being sad that I was alone. I was confused by those around me and looking back I see what I learned. In those moments I thought life would not go on. I thought I was done for. Here I am, life has moved on. I married the best person I know and look back in my journals about other guys I liked or dated and thought, how different (and sometimes HORRIBLE) my life would be now if I had married them.

I think to myself well if this didn't happen then this wouldn't have happened and I wouldn't be where I am today. I have changed and grown up so much in the last 5 years. So today I am saying I am thankful for the life I have lived and hope the things I am going through now will in the future be stepping stones for greater things in my life. It is hard to see that in the moment though.

Weekend Update

We have had a great weekend, but its not over yet!

Matt and Kandace came down from Rexburg, Idaho to visit this weekend . We were able to hang out with them Saturday and Sunday (and hopefully some tomorrow!)

Saturday was Valentine's Day and we went to Applebee's for lunch and had a family dinner with Dan's parents and Matt and Kandace at Carrabbas.

One of the best parts about this weekend was finding out that Matt and Kandace are expecting!!! I am going to be an AUNT! I Hope more than anything that in just a few weeks or months we will be hearing the same amazing news again and we will be blessed x2 in the niece/nephew category!

We are having Calkins Christmas this year and it will be really neat to have a little 2 and a half month old in the family for Christmas! It will probably be our first chance to meet Matt and Kandace's baby, but we are so excited!

We are also hoping that everything pans out so that we will be able to go on Calkins family vacation to California in August!

I have been journaling more

And blogging less. I wish I had things to blog about right now but mostly I have just been writing to myself.

Life is going quite well, but I don't have anything cute to post (like a child or a puppy)... so ya that's it for now.

Tonight Dan drove me up to American Fork so I could see the Mount Timp temple. I wanted to see it before we went there to get our endowments out in April! Which I am unbelievably excited to do!

Tomorrow we are going to Kaysville to have dinner at Dan's Aunt Mary's! I am excited to see the family!

I am currently taking fun dosages of pain medication. I had a root canal on Monday for a tooth that wasn't hurting and now (post root canal) is killing me. I highly dislike dentists and their freakish ways.

I am getting ready for midterms to start and Dan and I are still a pretty awesome pair, just extraordinarily busy!

What Once was Lost, Now is Found

Yay. We had a good end to what was seemingly a horrible day!

This is Life

I have been going none stop for three weeks. Today I had a reality check that I can't go full speed all the time.

There's something wrong with the Clutch in Dan's car, I have a cavity that has been hurting and I have a midterm on Monday that I HAVE to take for my online Epi Class!

I called in some reinforcement from Dan's mom to help us get Dan's car to the shop and she is kindly letting Dan borrow her van to drive up to South Jordan (since my car still has bald tires that we haven't had the money to fix).

We didn't have money for tires, and we don't have money for clutch problems and/or cavity problems.

But on a positive note, we did find a solution for the "no computer chair" issue. See we have been using a hard kitchen chair as a computer chair since we moved in and it is painful to sit in... Today we decided to make use of the small arm chair we bought from Ikea after our wedding, that for the past six months has been holding nothing but mail and coats! Now it kindly holds me while I sit at my computer. Way to go arm chair!

Also, 2 months from now we will be getting ready to head down to AZ for interviews (we hope!) and 3 months from today I will walk at Graduation!

Be proud of my cute husband, he is doing his internship at Medicity!

Update (Because I'm Boring)

I realized this morning how boring my blog has been since school has started! I do intend to put up an awesome recipe that Dan and I tried 2 weeks ago and love!! I just need 2 minutes to breathe while I am at home to do that!

I have completed 2 1/2 weeks of school! I have stayed pretty on top of things and have attended all my classes! This keeps me busy between 7am and 7pm everyday.

Lisa came to visit from Washington and we got to spend a lot of time with her this weekend. I just wish we were able to see her more before she leaves!

As far as fun things that we are looking forward to this semester... Dan and I are going with his parents to the Draper Temple Open House on February 10th. We are also hoping to make it down to Arizona for some interviews the last week of March! I will be done with my Health Department Internship and classes in 12 weeks and will graduate on April 24th! As soon as I graduate I will need to start my Gerontology Internship, and I hope to do that at a Hospice agency in Orem.

Thats it for right now!

January Nights

5 minute Update

I have been very busy and have not had much time to update my blog. I am stealing a few minutes from work to do so.

School is in the full swing of things and I am grudgingly taking 15 credit hours. I am at my internship 20 hours a week and at my job 20 hours a week. I leave my apartment at 7:30 am and return home at 7:30 pm and somewhere in the next 12 hours I have to figure out how to eat, sleep, do homework, and do everything else I need to do.

My head has been hurting for the past few days, I haven't decided if its pseudotumor pains worsening or my head cold ending. My head doesn't feel nearly as horrible as it did 1 year ago exactly!

I just turned in my graduation application. I am so ready to get this show on the road! I just have to tell myself 15 weeks and then I am ABSOLUTELY done (with the hard stuff, still will have a 3 credit gerontology internship!)

Dan goes back to school Monday, lets pray I can make it through the anxiety of him driving in the stinky weather!

Giving Thanks

My sister in law Lisa sent the family an email this morning asking us what we are grateful for. She is giving a talk on Sunday on Gratitude... I have been in the dumps for the past few days (maybe even weeks) trying to make it through School, Work, Health and personal issues. Seeing Lisa's email helped me remember that there are so many things I can be grateful for!

I am a freak about Lists so in the spirit of Thanks Giving:

1. My adorably sweet patient and kind husband!
2. My Mom and Dan's Mom, both are willing to listen to me talk about what is going on in my life and give advice! (Not to mention Dan's Mom coming over to help me do dishes when I was freaking out the other day!)
3. Our siblings. I love my brothers and Kate as well as step siblings Scott & Penny and Steven & Mindy! I also feel like one of the great bonus' of marrying Dan was inheriting 6 more wonderful friends who have been through so much and I can learn from them and enjoy being around them!
   
4. The Gospel and the Atonement. This is what makes it possible for Dan and I to get sealed in the temple and what gives me hope for a better future. For the first time in my life I feel like theres no way I would want to miss church for any reason. Going to church on Sunday gives me a spiritual recharge to make it through yet another week!
   
5. My sweet little friends and cousins Chainey and Carley. They give me hope that someday I can have kids like them!
   
6. My friends! All of them! They support me and lift me up and make me laugh! I love them!
   
7. My education! As much as I moan and groan I am so thankful that I am nearing the end of my time here at BYU and I am so proud of myself for getting to this point and for making it to the end even though their have been times when I have wanted to give up!
8. My health!!! I am so quick to complain about my current health status but I cannot give enough gratitude to my heavenly father for the fact that my greatest health problem, (or what seems to me to be my biggest struggle) Pseudotumor Cerebri, was not in fact a brain tumor! Just a pretend one!
   
9. I am thankful for the Weight Watchers program because it has helped me so much in my struggle with losing weight in order to be a healthier person!
   
10. Ok this may sound dumb but I am so thankful for Blogging! It has been a great way for me to journal this year having limited time to sit down and write in a journal... instead this is something I can do between classes (during classes) and when I have a minute on the computer here and there! I also LOVE reading blogs! Its so much fun!
    

Sweet November

It seriously feels like fall outside (and is starting to feel a little like winter.) I am trying to be optimistic about the weather although it is hard! This week was a fun filled week full of SCHOOL! It was the first week of November and all was well in the Calkins home!

This week on Tuesday I made this bold move:
Which led to this:

As lame as you may think I am because I had to do this (my mom suggested it) it is working for me! I mean my credit card is in a block of ice... not so convenient is it, but still around in case of emergency!

On Wednesday I applied for GRADUATION! I am walking in April graduation but will not finish my last 3 credit internship for my minor until the end of June... This is my last semester of classes. In January I start a 18 hour a week unpaid internship and will do that along side my 25 hour a week job!! I am really excited however to not have exams or classes to attend daily! (Internship location is still undecided).

On Friday this joyous miracle came into our lives:
It may not look like much (because we already had the frame and the sheets and quilt) but underneath it all is a brand new Serta mattress set by Vera Wang (who knew you could get a Vera Wang Mattress?!) It was a delightful way early Christmas present and I cannot tell you how needed it was... It replaced Dan's 10 year old Cali King which was broken on one side! However, in the hustle and bustle of the moving men trying to be as quick as possible, they did this little number to our bedroom door:It took the convincing of my Mother in Law and my Mother to get me to call R C Willey about paying for our door to be fixed. I really don't care that they broke it but my mom reminded me that I will have to pay to get it fixed when we move out because we will be charged. The wood is ruined and I can't re-screw... So yay... R C Willey gets to fix our door now... Poor guys they were just in too big of a hurry! Nice part was they didn't even say anything about breaking our door... just asked if I could sign the paper so they could leave.

Dan had a little mid quarter miracle of his own happen. For any of you who don't have husbands who love their XBox 360, this picture is a sign for Dan's long awaited game, Gears of War 2. He is so cute staring at the screen and well all I can say is, he has been a sweetheart by putting me first (doesn't mean he doesn't pout a bit about not getting to play 24/7). I will be honest though, since well before our wedding Dan really gave up playing video games, he kicked his butt into gear and got really into school and work and spending time with ME! He deserves a break from his horrid schedule so I am glad his game came! (I am however excited for him to beat it... then it won't seem so great!)

Also on Friday my dear friend Chelsea came home (for good) from her nanny job that she has been doing for the last 8 months in Stanford, Connecticut! We went to Sushi and it was sooooo good!

Thats this week in a nutshell. Aside from Obama being president elect and Ashley, Amanda and Kate having babies, this has been our week! OH and I successfully indexed 700 names this week... I was a little obsessed!

I am looking forward to an awesome Womens health midterm this week as well as a fun 4 couple get together on Wednesday with my dear friends Allyson & Jon, Rachael & Milan and Tonya & Kyle!

I need a Break before I Break

This is not my week!

When all the little things in life seem to go wrong... what are we to do? I feel like throwing big massive angry fits of rage instead of dealing with them like an adult this week.

Life's blessings!

Dan came home this past week with a bouquet of daisies and was so cute in having worked on this slide show of 101 reasons why he loves me. It was so cute and made me bawl. He is adorable. It was also cute idea of him to do since we had been married 101 days... Cheesy, maybe but I absolutely adore him for the things he does for me!My good friend Kate Brady had her baby shower yesterday it was so much fun! Her baby boy, Archie Bernard Brady, is due November 4th!

Michelle, Me, Kate (and Archie), Jeanine & Sarah

These girls were my roommates when I was 19! We had so much fun and I love each and every time I get to hang out with them. I was there for 6 hours and it went by so fast! Archie will be the first baby born to our little group! We are all so excited!

Today we had a great morning meeting with our bishop. He is such a blessing in our lives and so sweet to us both. We are so excited for events to come and we're thrilled to hear that what we are working towards is coming sooner than we ever thought! We are looking forward to the end of the year even more and are just so excited for all the great things to come! In 3 months we will both have finished another semester and be 6 months away from graduation! We will also get to go home to Arizona for Christmas!