Public Service Announcement: Back up Your Pictures

Everyone might have their own reason for thinking that pictures are important.  It might be for proof that an event happened.  Proof that they were there.

I want to capture a moment so that I can look at it forever.  Recall in perfection what everything looked like so that I can remember what everything felt like.

I used to wonder why people took so many pictures with their phones.  The quality is horrible in comparison to what a good point and shoot or amazing Digital SLR can take.

Once I had Zach, I totally understood.  I ALWAYS had my phone next to me and I never had time to go and grab a better camera.  Plus, I could show Grandma's and Grandpa's and Uncle's and Aunt's and anyone else who cared to look almost instantly what Zach and I were up to.

I put hundreds and hundreds of pictures on my phone.  And when he started laughing his little 3 month old Zach laugh, I started taking videos.  I put some of the pictures on Flickr.  I couldn't find a way to get the video off of my phone easily so I just enjoyed them from there.

Well....now my phone is dead and all the information has been deleted and lost forever.  And I am totally gutted.  All those videos of my little bear playing and laughing.  Crawling for the first time, are gone.

This is a lesson that I hope to only learn once.

Happy New Year 2014

It's that time of year again!  It's time for me to write a very confusing letter to myself. I started this tradition the first day of 2010 and I've loved doing it every year.   I reflect on the year that I've had and ask the "future Katrina" how her year went.  Then when I write this up for 2015, I answer those questions.  It is a great way for me to see how the year was and see what used to be important to me.  If you want to get really confused, you can read 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013.  I, personally, find them fascinating to read but that is probably because I write them FOR me.

Dear 2014 Katrina,
Today is the last day of 2013 (and I usually post it the first day of 2014).  This year was a really big growing year.  Physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  I'm excited to write about it but first off, I'm going to try and answer the questions in my last letter to myself.

How beautiful is our little baby boy?  

Words can not even describe how I feel about Zach.  He is perfect.  True story though, when he first came out, I was like, "Oh...that poor kid.  What did I do to his head?  Will he ever look normal?"  But he quickly returned to normal and he has been beautiful ever since.  Even when he gets his little pouting face and starts sobbing, I can't help but just think he is the most beautiful little person in the whole wide world.  

That being said...I'm his mom and that might be my job to think that.  But I mean...look at this kid.

How wonderful is it being a mother?  

Being a mom is HARD!  I finally understand why when my dad would turn to my mother on vacation and ask, "How are you enjoying your vacation?"  She would respond, "Well, I'm not really on vacation."  In my mind I was like, "But we are on a beach!"  Yeah....on a beach...with the beach that she "works for."  We are currently making dirty clothes for her to wash when we get home.  She still has to make sure we don't kill each other and ourselves.  She has to make sure that we eat food and stay clean.  Being a mom is an all the time thing.

That being said, after a night of very little sleep and a constantly crying baby, when I wake up in the morning and Zach is smiling at me....there is nothing in the world that is better.  There is no sight that I would rather see.  Even this morning, when he bit me on the nose with his brand new teeth....I can think of anything else that would make life better.

Was it worth the wait and all the vomit? 

Yes.  Aaron asked me, right after Zach was born, "If you had to give Zach back but never experience any of that infertility drama and the difficult pregnancy, would you do it?"  And I said, "WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME CRY?!?!  I JUST HAD A BABY!!"  Because the answer will always be, "No."  I wouldn't trade him for anything.  I love him all the more for how hard it was to get him.

That being said, I'm NOT ready to do it all again.

Is Aaron a great dad?  

Aaron is a great dad.  He can be so adorable with Zach.  I'm still the more doting parent but Aaron FOR SURE loves Zach and carries his weight as a daddy.

How did he like changing diapers for the first time?  

He handled it like a champ.  It was so funny because the first night, Aaron was swaddling and changing diapers like a pro and since I wasn't in the position to be walking around and helping (since I would make a giant puddle of various body fluids), it was great that Aaron magically decided that he could do all of the things that he was nervous about.

How are the callings at church coming along?  Still working hard or did it get ridiculously hard with a little one?  

Aaron and I were making it work pretty well even with Zach.  But the primary president got released since she moved to Las Vegas and I was released and put into Activity Days.  I was doing Activity Days and Cub Scouts for awhile because Aaron needed to have a partner and he didn't get one until about a month ago.  I absolutely LOVE being in Activity Days.  It is like cub scouts for girls and I'm a girl!  So it is great.  It is weird that Aaron and I don't have any callings together.  I guess that we had to grow up sometime.  It is also weird being in Relief Society again.  Not bad weird....just...more intellectual conversation weird.

Did you get to do any traveling before the baby came?  After?

In March, we went to San Diego/Oceanside and it wasn't the best trip...actually.  I had a cold the whole time but Aaron was determined to go and see stuff so basically I got dragged around feeling like crap.  BUT we got to take some awesome maternity photos at the same time meeting up with an old friend of mine.  That was pretty great.  So that trip was kind of a mixed bag.

And the only trip after Zach was born, was to Myrtle Beach to visit his "aunts and uncles".  It was definitely more stressful with a baby but it was a wonderful trip.  We got to see some wonderful friends and do some new fun things.  Plus, I had some extra hands to help out with Zach...which he LOVED.  

Now the the question portion is over, we are onto the REVIEW OF GOALS (said in a loud booming announcer voice).

Oh wow...Reading that first goal just made me realize how quickly this year went by. 

• Finish reading Teaching, No Greater Call and The Infinite Atonement

I remember vividly having a conversation with Aaron that was like, "We need to finish the Book of Mormon and when we are done, I would love to read The Infinite Atonement together this year."  That didn't happen.  We did finish the Book of Mormon.  It was a challenge to read it before the start of 2013 and I think Aaron and I finished in February.  I did finish reading "Teaching, No Greater Call"  but I only read about half of "The Infinite Atonement".  I started reading it right after Zach was born.  I would read it when I was breastfeeding since that was most of my life and it took him a long time.

Second goal:

• Go to the temple at least once a month (this is going to stay on here until we do it perfectly!)

No.  We didn't do it.  *hangs head in shame*  But I was thinking about it the other day and trying to figure out why it doesn't happen as much as I would like.  We are busy.  Not just...I don't know...lazy?  It really is, that we are busy.  We got to the temple the most when we are on vacation.  When we are on vacation near a temple, it is a number one priority because we finally have the time to just do it.  We go to the MOVIES less than we go to the temple....so I want to improve on this one...but I'm not going to beat myself up about it.

Third goal:

• Grow and harvest at least 3 things that aren't raspberries (because we all know that the raspberries will come no matter what you do).

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!  YEAH RIGHT!!!  I didn't do ONE SINGLE THING in the garden this year.  We had raspberries and they were delicious.  We had grapes AND this year, a woman in my ward loaned me her juicer and so I actually made my own juice with those grapes.  Normally they just rot on the vine because I didn't know what to do with grapes that have seeds.  But they made amazing juice.  Ummmm....and I blanched and froze my own peaches....so...does that count?  I'm going to count it.  I learned some new skills and we were able to enjoy (and still enjoy THREE different kinds of produce).

Fourth goal:

• Continue improving the house

Check!  We are putting in a sprinkler system.  And I think that it was this calendar year that we finished painting the horrible wood in the basement.  So yeah....we are making some progress.

Fifth goal:

• Write in your journal at least once a week

One good thing about having the goals so high, is that, if I fall short, I've still done SOMETHING that was good.  I didn't write in my journal once a week but I did write and I did write pretty often.  I wrote so much in my church journal that I've decided to write ALL of my journal entries in my church journal.  I've come to realize that my life has gotten more and more centered on Christ and so I don't see the point of having two journals.  And of course, I do have this blog...and I'm pretty sure that I've come pretty close to writing every week on the blog...maybe sometimes in a glob.

Sixth goal:

• Go to a new state with Aaron (Wyoming...Colorado...they are both really close).

YES!!!  We went to South Carolina!!!  I'm so glad that we did this.  Last year I had this goal and we didn't do it.  We just went to California A LOT.  I'm so glad that we were able to go to a state that both of us had never been to. 

Seventh goal:

• Give your baby a million kisses

I don't know if I've gotten quite there yet...but heaven knows that I have been trying.  That boy is powered by kisses.  Sometimes he starts to cry and get tired or upset for one reason or another...and I just kiss the ever living light out of his face and he powers back up.  I also "eat" his tummy...he loves that.  It gives him the giggles.

Well, let me write about 2013.

I'm testing the theory that with the greatest joys come the greatest sorrows/trials.  I finally got my wonderful little boy.  Nothing more wonderful or glorious could have happened to me this year.  I've wanted it so badly for so long and I finally got my miracle baby.  

3 weeks later, I had to have surgery and I couldn't hold my baby for a week.  It wasn't the first health problem of the year.  I also had pneumonia early in the year.  After the surgery, I got thrush which was incredible painful but got cleared up relatively quickly.  

During all of that, my mother saved my son's life.  Turns out that he didn't like the medication that I was on and decided that breathing wasn't something he wanted to have to worry about while he was sleeping.  That was a HORRIBLE day.  I don't think that my mom will ever recover from that but I'm so grateful that she was able to come out to Utah again to be with me.

This year while I thought that I was making amazing progress with my scripture reading, calling completing, and Christ-like becoming, I was made painfully aware that no matter what you are going or how good you might be doing on your own personal journey toward God, PEOPLE WILL JUDGE YOU.  I thought that I had left all of that behind me when I started fervently on my journey back to my Heavenly Father. 

It wasn't a bad lesson to learn.  It was very painful to realize that there will always be people who think badly of you.  But in this, I realized that it doesn't matter.  The ONLY THING that matters is the you are doing your best and that you keep moving forward towards God and helping Him move the "work" along.

This trial also helped me put in perspective how far I've come on my spiritual journey.  6 years ago, something like this might have helped me justify leaving the Church.  It might have discouraged me so much that I wouldn't want to be part of a Church with such non-Christlike people.  But I'm at a place spiritually that I knew that those people were wrong about me but that they were also human.  That they were on their own personal journey back to Christ.  And that's okay.

It also helped me review the ways that I look at people and the ways that I judge people.  So by being judged, I saw ways that I could improve how I see people, treat people, judge people in an unkind way.

I got my DRIVER'S LICENSE THIS YEAR!  I'm so excited!  Having a driver's license opens so many different doors for me.  I'm able to do so much more on my own and the independence is exhilarating.  I feel bad about all the years that I didn't have my license but that is in the past and I can only move forward.

Also in 2013, I ended my job as an assistant teacher at the preschool I worked at.  I LOVED that job.  It was incredible and you better believe that I miss those kids every day.  I started a new job as Zach's mom and I know that I'm going to have a wonderful time with it.  It is hard.  It is 24/7 but it is going to be worth it.  I also started a Mary Kay business.  WHAT?  Yes.  We need some extra income and this is a wonderful way for me to get that extra money and still be able to be a stay at home Mom for Zach.  So wish me luck people! Or better yet, buy some moisturizer and cleanser for your face! :)

Goals for 2014:

• Find a spiritual book you want to read and read it!  I vote The Infinite Atonement...but the New Testament would be nice too.
• Go to the temple at least once a month (Because I said, that I would put it on here every year till I do it right)
• Rid the house of nonessentials and live in such a way that you embrace experiences and not things.
• Get the house in "selling order".  We might not move this year, but I want to start living in a way that we are ready to get out of here.

I have some other goals but they are more private (what?  What is this...private, you speak of?).  I'll write them down in my journal and work on them throughout the year...but I want to remember that they are in my journal and not on here for next years letter to myself.

More of a wish than a goal for the new year, I want to move.  Aaron and I are looking into ways to make that happen.  But that is my greatest wish.  Utah is a nice place but it isn't home.  Aaron and I knew that this wasn't where we wanted to end up and so we are going to be trying to find a new adventure for our family.

Questions for the Katrina that lived through all of 2014.  I want to hear all about how much Zach has grown and all of the things that he can do now!  Is he sleeping through the night yet?  Have you started feeling like he needs a brother or sister?  What is your favorite mother/son thing to do together?  What fun things do Aaron and you get to do?  Did you move?  Do you have a place that you are thinking about?  How did the Mary Kay business go?  

2013 was a pretty great year in most ways but a very trying way in others.  2014 is going to be full of new experiences and more "firsts" for our little family.  I'm excited to see the people that we continue to grow into.  I'm so glad that I get to have such a great family to adventure with and I'm ready to see what wonderful things we can do!

Bring on 2014!!!
-Katrina