February 2026

 We started February as we usually do, celebrating Kori's birthday.  This year, we knew it could be a hard day for us, so we did everything we could to make it happy and not hard.  Russ and I worked.  And then at 3:30, we ditched out and headed over to the St. George Temple.  

We met Mom and Dad and Gracie, Grant and Kailee 2 there too and we did an endowment session.  It was so SO good.  

Then we met the rest of the family at Cafe Sabor, for some good ole Mexican Food

and lots of guacamole just as Kori would have wanted.  

It was a very good day, we all said it several times.

A cute young women's group left this on my car.

It made me feel so good.  

The next big event in February was PROM.

Peyton was asked to Prom like 4 months ago. 

They boys felt like they needed to lock in their dates.

I said "do you even think you will still be friends in four months?"

Well they were thank goodness.

They are even better friends than they were four months ago, 

boys are cool like that. 

She practiced dribbling while we were waiting for Easton to arrive

She had a fantastic night.  She was so happy while she was telling us

all about the events.

Her friends are such a great group of girls. 

They are not typical, dramatic, back biting, mean girls. 

They are so sweet to each other and they are super supportive.

Easton was the perfect gentleman.

He opened the door for her and told her she looked super pretty. 

They danced the night away (she even slow danced and said it was okay.)

They made homemade pizzas in a pizza oven.

I pulled off 3 more decorating projects in February.

One was a monster house out in Desert Color. 

I thought it turned out really well and I appreciated the opportunity.

The rest of February was a total blur for me.

I am so sorry to the rest of the family who was having events and fun things going

on in their lives.  I was there in body, but I was completely out of my mind for nearly the

entire second half of the month.

This was the last day where I felt normal, good, whole, happy and pain free. 

In January, I broke my very back upper right tooth eating a peanut. 

A mistake I will never make again.

Nevertheless, my tooth broke right in half.

The biggest chunk of tooth just fell right off. 

I wasn't in any pain physically, but mentally I was a wreck.

It was super upsetting. 

I immediately made an appointment to be seen by my wonderful dentist.

So sorry, he said, that you have broken your tooth on a Friday.

I don't work on Fridays, but I will see you first thing Monday morning.

I ate very gingerly on only my left side all weekend and felt very sorry for myself.

Finally it was Monday and I met with him and he told me that his suggestion would be 

to extract the broken tooth and put an implant in it's place. 

That sounded HORRIBLE, but somehow not as devastating as a root canal that would be an hour and a half of endless, non stop drilling to be followed with a crown that wasn't guarenteed to last longer than 10 years and I'd be right back here doing this plan.

And unfortunately, he said,  I don't do this kind of work, so he referred me to a place that does.  

I set up the appointment and planned to be sedated completly for the surgery.

 

THEN..... 

I proceded to have 4 days of intense vertigo (most likely due to the stress) and the thought of being sedated and then waking up from that in most likely a full spin was incomprehensible.  

So I decided to be brave and be awake during the procedure.

And the nice dentist felt and had compassion on my anxiety and perscribed a nice little gift of valium for me to take prior to the extraction.

Day of surgery.

I woke up and took my lovely drugs, Raleigh gave me a lovely blessing and we drove over to the doctor's office on a beautiful rainy day with a mix of snow flurries and really low hanging clouds. It was the most perfect of days.  I wish that I could have enjoyed it more, but I was too nervous and upset to even appreciate it.  

The procedure went as well as it could have.

It didn't hurt at all.

I was very relaxed and happy by the time the doctor got to work.

I told him many times that he "was so nice and wasn't hurting me at all."

I took the rest of the day off and laid in my bed and listened to the rain while the valium wore off.

And that was a really nice day for me

I did pretty well on that Wednesday and Thursday the next day too.

But then on Thursday night at 6:00 my pain suddenly went from a 4/10 to a 9/10 and climbing

in 30 minutes and I was in excruciating, unbearable, unbelievable pain for the rest of the night.

I couldn't sleep. 

Medication (tylenol only) would give me maybe two hours of relief. 

I was completely miserable.

FRIDAY MORNING (I found some Oxycodone from my back injury in 2022)

I put all of my eggs in the Oxycodone basket I knew I would be sick from it, but 

I if it could help me get some sleep, I was to the point where I was willing to risk it. 

No improvement

and now I had nausea in addition to indescribable pain. 

 FRIDAY NIGHT (after I had cried at least 20 different times)

Sidenote Disclaimer:

I have given birth to seven children....  2 of them without medication.... 3 of them were C-sections.

I have had my gall bladder removed

and I have survived a muscular, skeletal, full back sprain.

Not to mention I have two chronic conditions where vertigo is the leading side effect. 

I am not a wimp.

But this was without a doubt the most pain I have ever been in my entire life.

And it rocked my world and made be feel like a little baby. 

This was me ALL DAY SATURDAY...

And then at 9:30pm on Saturday I took some Advil and 

for some unknown reason that wimpy little over the counter drug seemed to do the trick.

finally....  some....  relief.

It was crazy that 400 mg of Advil did more to stop the

pain than OXYCODONE?

Pain was 3/10 again.

And I slept for the first time in three nights.

On Sunday, I was finally able to eat, sit up, go to church, partially feel happy...

so we made a good, soft dinner and the kids were helpful.

Peyton asked Easton to Preferrence and he answered her YES

She opened her gift in my room, so I could see.

We attended the temple for ward temple night on the last Friday night of the month.

Our temple (Red Cliffs) was closed for maintence, so we went to The Saint George Temple. 

It was a wonderful night and the temple was so gorgeous against the dark sky

Raleigh loved these trees 

For the rest of the month...  my pain level was a 3/10.

My bottom lip has been numb since the procedure.

I can feel it wearing off more and more each day.

I am assuming that it is because I am so swollen and as the swelling 

wears off, so will the numbness. 

The sad part is that the numbness didn't help mask the pain in the slightest.

It only just made me feel agitated and on edge.

I feel badly that I was missing in action for most of the month.

And that I was not a very good patient.

I was blubbery and weak and so sad for 10 days. 

I know people were doing things, but I wasn't with it enough to document.

Here is hoping that March will bring with it better health and loads of fun things to write about.  

I cannot believe we are through February already.  That is such great news for me. 

January and February are not fun months.

Here we are almost to Spring. 

We are busily planning a trip to New York.  I can't wait. 

The kids just wrapped up Quarter 3.  That's crazy.

We have a couple of pretty big ward/stake changes that will happen in the next month. 

That is always exciting. 

January 2026

Every year, I not only anticipate January being a tough month mentally and emotionally for me, I document it.  I document that it was a struggle for me and that it dragged on and on endlessly and seemed like 3 months in 1. And it's kind of depressing.  The Christmas Decor came down and now my house looks naked.  There isn't anything exciting to look forward to.  No parties.  No family visits.  

 But not this year.  2026 January was a joy and it was jam packed with exciting opportunities which made it fly by at a record pace.  Opportunities galore just came to me and I don't know how, but I pulled them off.  And they were BIG.

We started off the month with our 2026 Kick Off Event.  During this event, we are presented with stats from 2025 designed to help us feel nostalgic and contemplative about the last year but additionally meant to pump us us for the year ahead.  It was successful  We felt good about ourselves and enjoyed the day very much.  This is an incredible group of people who are all indivdually dedicated and motivated to be the very best at their jobs.  I continue to feel so blessed to get to work for this company. 

I was asked to be a presenter on a Leadership Panel

that was fun

I also loved collaborating with and learning from others

Our bosses are so funny and are such good sports

I have worked for some real Slimeballs in my work history. 

I don't know how, but I am somehow drawn to them.  

Either that, or Slimeballs are just the norm in the business world. 

I would pray almost everyday going to my various slimeball jobs...  that I would 

at some point get lucky and stumble upon a company that had good people 

who appreciated me and realized that I just wanted to work hard for them

and that I would be recognized for that.

Well here I am.  I found the company. 

Is it perfect? 

NO, NOT BY A LONG SHOT.

But it is a close as a company can get.

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I think for the better part of my life, I have loved the fabric softner called Downy.  I am very drawn to smells.  I try really hard to smell good all the time.  I like when my house smells good.  Naturally, I would make an effort to have my clothes smell good too.  

I LOVED the April Fresh scent of my childhood that Downy provided.  And my mom is a literal laundry genius, so our clothes always smelled a little bit like heaven.  My friends would comment on it.

  Then sometime in the early 2000s, the Challenged Decision Makers of the Downy Corperation made the ludicris decision to change the April Fresh Scent to something that can only be described as Old Man's Hair Oil.  So naturally we all had to stop using it and choose something else.  Nana starting using the Downy Lavender Scent and that became her new thing and her house started smelling like Lavender instead of April.  

I had to just forgo laundry softner for several years until Downy introduced Unstoppables.  They were divine and I adored them.  I started getting my own complements on the smell of my clothes.  

THEN December 2025 came and my Unstoppables all of the sudden and without warning stopped smelling like the delightful Unstoppables smell that I loved and started smelling like...........

Freaking Old Man's Hair Oil.  

Well......I went from zero to 1000 in 4 seconds and I jumped on my laptop and wrote a review on the Downy Website that THEY WON'T SOON FORGET.  Then I fell into a deep deep depression for a whole hour.  What am I going to do now?  

Why would you intentionally break something that wasn't broken? 

I get that Old Man's Hair Oil is probably a cheaper and easier scent to recreate.

I mean that is the only explanation.

I get that your main objective to is make money and NOT to make your customers happy. 

I get that you don't really care if consumers like your product.  That line of thinking is blatantly obvious.  Someone, somewhere in a boardroom suggested the scent change and the people with NO class or backbones agreed with the plan.... probably because they are most likely "yes men" just doing whatever their bosses and higher ups say is best for the company and those with any sophistication or a slight sense of style just didn't have the where-with-all or the courage to speak up for the consumers and so here I am.

In a laundry quandry.

(That is actually funny.)

Bottom line is... I simply CANNOT smell like 4 day old, oily, unwashed pomade.

Ain't no one ever gonna compliment that.

Two weeks later, I got this in the mail.  

The idiots at Downy sent me a $20 gift card, so that I can buy a bottle of Old Man's Hair Oil scented Unstoppables on THEM next time.  

Like that will fix the problem.

We aren't going to change the odor ma'am.... so sorry,

but at least you won't have to pay for them this one time. 

Not at all the outcome I was hoping for fellas.

But, I am impressed by the effort. 

Your guest servicing team is on point and I'll go out on a limb

 and guess that they are probably giving these things out like candy.

I'll have to use my gift card to buy GAIN laundry softner now, I guess.  

Utter disappointment.

................................................................................................................................

I got to stage and set up this MONSTER house for it's photo shoot. 

I brought in two truck loads of decor and went to town on it for two days.

I think it turned out pretty well.

I enjoyed the opportunity

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I was invited to attend a dinner with our bosses to celebrate the 

Red Rock Star winners for 2025 of which I was one of 12.

It was THE MOST FUN night. 

I sat by our CEO and he and I cracked up the entire night.

He is SUPER competitive and he turns everything (I mean EVERYTHING) into a competition. 

He and I had a "story off" where he told his most embarrassing moment to the entire group 

and I told mine and then the group voted on whose was worse. 

I totally won.

14/2

Do you know how bad a story must be to win by that high of a vote?

Yeah, it's bad.

They gave us $1000 bonuses,

A neclace with two dainty stars (because I am a Rockstar),

and a really nice certificate with one of the nominations on it for us to keep. 

Someone wrote the nicest things about me.

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These super darling people attended the Special Needs Mutual

on one of the Thrusdays nights this month.

Our ward gets assigned to plan an activity like once every four years.

There are like 180 special needs kids in our Southern Utah area who attend

each week and they are so fun and energetic and innocent.

Our kids were reluctant and a little nervous to go.

But when they came home, they were all on FIRE.

All of them.

They all felt the spirit of the night and made lots of new friends. 

Each of them had a very humorous story.

They were so happy that they had walked into their fears

and attended this fun activity.

The cute kids sang a song for our ward...

"In this very room, there's quite enough love for all of us

In this very room there's quite joy for all of us

And there's quite enough hope

And quite enough power 

To chase away any gloom

For Jesus

Lord Jesus

Is in this very room"

And they sang with their little speech impediments and totally off key

and we cry everytime we watch the video

Jesus loves them SO much

We ended the month with our monthly temple trip.

I was not feeling well for most of the month.

I had several vertigo days.

And on the days that I wasn't spinning and nauseous

I was feeling like at any moment I would start. 

I was reluctant to venture out away from home too much.

I watched what I ate.

I stayed close to the safety of my home just in case.  

My goal to get to the temple twice this month was foiled. 

Raleigh isn't a huge fan of photos.

He loves me, so he participates.

One day he will be SO happy that I documented his life.

He is teasing me

More teasing

Me telling him to get serious and behave

Thank you Lover

You're a good man

I am so grateful that January, my very least favorite month of the whole year is over and behind us

even though this January was not too bad.

I redecorated and redesigned 4 homes in January

That is NUTS

I broke a tooth literally in half and I have a big procedure ahead of me to get that fixed.

That was traumatic

My bloodwork was good for the most part this month, but indicated, just as I suspected....

I most likely have a sinus infection causing all of my dizziness.

I am also probably going to have to look for a new oncologist.

I swear on my life, my current doctor didn't go to medical school. 

It's like she is Leonardo Di Caprio in  

Catch Me If You Can 

just posing as a medical provider.  

Everytime I ask her a question about anything to do with my bloodwork, it's like she 

doesn't know anything about blood. 

And her answer is always the same...

"If you are worried about that, talk to your healthcare provider."

WELL WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?

I am paying you A LOT of money (speciality wages even) 

And you in fact, chose Hemotology as your speciality.

By definition, you should know a thing or two about blood.

Be a doctor for crying out loud.  

You have to advocate for yourself when it comes to your health, I know this. 

But, if I am the only one paying attention to my lab work....

and I have to point out disturbing trends to you....

I want some of my money back.

I am going to die one day and she'll be like

"whoops, I missed that."

SHOOT.

We had a fun month.

We love being together and going places together. 

Our kids are such a delight to be with. 

They are obedient, grateful, kind, adaptable, smart and SO FUNNY.

We love being with them and we try to do it a lot. 

Life is Good