Beware: Marathon post!

To all my (2?) devoted readers,

My posting continues to decrease in frequency and for that I apologize.

(Eliza took this picture! Impressive, right?)

I have thought on why I have failed to update this blog more and came up with a few excuses/reasons.

• Obvious: I am in grad school. I write a lot EVERY DAY and usually stay up writing a lot EVERY NIGHT. I should be writing grad school stuff right now but the PsycInfo database was struggling to load, so I took a break. That's right, folks. I'm swamped.

But it's more than that. I unfortunately am a time waster and procrastinate by spending time on such curious sites like facebook, etc., so it's not like I don't have ANY time. So other things I realized that were keeping me from writing more on here are:

• I'm different. I feel like I don't have people I can relate to or relate to me. I used to blog and blog-stock CONSTANTLY. Now my Google Reader always has about 100 unread posts in it. But before when I blogged, I was a full-time mom who worked part time. There were a lot of people on the blog-o-sphere who were in a similar enough situations to me that I felt like a part of things. Now I'm a single mom who lives with her parents, works as a therapist, is a grad student, has a 2 1/2 year old daughter, is getting divorced, and straddling this world of mommy-hood and single-dom. It's a really bizarre place. I'm not trying to say that I only want to read about people who are EXACTLY like me, though, b/c that would be boring, but... it's different.
• I think in some ways my life is a LOT more stimulating than it was. Getting to be at work doing fascinating stuff with people who are in need and being challenged academically-- it's exhilarating and fulfilling for me in a way that being a mostly stay-at-home mom never was for me. I still am home with Eliza 3.5 days out of the week, but it's really different than when I only worked one or two evenings a week from 3:30pm to midnight. So the allure of fulfillment and stimulation that blogging seemed to offer before is not there as much anymore.
• A lot of the work I do that I find fascinating is confidential and would be inappropriate to share about on a blog. I have a LOT of sad stories that are shared with me on an almost daily basis. And the stories that aren't sad/confidential usually seem like they would bore most people who I think read this blog.
• A lot of my feelings about my family and my divorce would be inappropriate and much too personal to share on this venue too. And honestly, I am careful who I share stuff with. There seem to be so many people who are morbidly curious for details about my divorce! I feel like they want to ask me about it in the same way that they kreen their necks to get a glimpse of a bloody accident on the side of the road. And YES, I realize that it seems like a lot of 20-something's are getting divorced these days and so that seems statistically significant and interesting to you, but I DON'T CARE. If you want to talk about that, go talk about it with your spouse or married friends- haha. I am just myself and don't care to be used as a vignette in a sunday school lesson on marriages that didn't make it. ***NOTE: If you want to talk to me about the many happy and interesting things that are going on in my life, though, I would LOVE to chat/talk, though! I am not my divorce-- that is not my defining feature, and I don't want to be treated like it is. Then if that substantive conversation turns to us talking about other things, then that's great too! I'm actually a pretty open person.
• That leads to my next reason- I worry that people will find my honest expressions or thoughts as angry or bitter. Anger and bitterness are easier emotions to deal with than sadness and fear, so many divorcees are angry and bitter. It's just part of the healing process, I think. But I get concerned about distressing others and being judged sometimes. We'll stick with Eliza pictures on those weeks! hehe.
• Eliza is often VERY resistant to getting her picture taken! Less cute pictures of Eliza = not as cool of a blog here! I'm pretty sure that those are what keep people coming back to this site most of at all.

(She was happy before and after I had the camera-- I swear!)

• I started this blog when I lived farther away from my parents and siblings. Now Robby's the only one in my immediate family that lives far away. I love knowing that my West Coast family can know some of what's going on here, though! :D
• I want my posts to be "perfect" and ever-so-clever and gripping-- and usually I don't have much of that to divulge!

So anyways! I hope I didn't scare everyone away with that! Thanks a bunch to those of you who comment-- it cheers up my day!

Some updates that people might not be aware of:

• I got a job!!!!!!! They asked me to stay on as a therapist at my internship at The Nurturing Center! I'll be working about 30 hours a week, and be able to do some of my work from home, so I'll still have lots of time with Eliza! I LOVE the work I get to do there even though it's pretty intense at times!
• I'm pretty sure we're going to start Eliza at a Montessori preschool soon! I'll share more updates on that later.
• Eliza has now moved into her new GORGEOUS big girl room! It took some adjustments, but it's great for her room to be right next mine, instead of up two flights of stairs! I'll try to take some pictures soon because Mom, Dad, and Tim Strickland did an AMAZING job on making it the perfect room for a little princess!

(Eliza told me to take this picture of her reading the BoM by herself)

• Eliza has morbid curiousity with death. She likes to act out that she's my dead dog, Mika, and we'll say, "Mom, you be Heavenly Father, and I'll be Mika, who's dead." And then I have to say, "Oh, Mika, it's so good to see you. I missed you while you were on earth." And Eliza pretends to pant.

(This is Eliza's Mika doll- she likes to take him most places)

• Other times she just has me act like Heavenly Father and asks me what he says, or Daniel and she's the lions in the den, or the hunter who almost stabs Snow White and she's Snow White. This girl LOVES to play pretend. We have some simpler ones like I'm Cinderella and she's the fairy god mother or vice-versa. Sometimes she likes to pretend to be Reuben and Aunt Katy too- FUNNY! Or when mom went out of town to help Robby with his knee surgery, Eliza had me pretend to be Robby with a hurt knee and hobble around while she was Oma who helped him feel better.

• Eliza is newly obsessed with Bats, bugs that eat you, her tummy being sick (hypochondriasis?), sippy cups with dogs on them, jewelry, reading about the Lamanites who fight people in the Book of Mormon stories. She'll tell me, "I want to read the mean ones!" I worry about what the scriptures are REALLY teaching my child? Alma and Almulek seeing the children and women burned? Abinadi? King Noah? The crucifiction? Any story involving Moroni... haha.
• Eliza loves playing with my camera and can actually take pictures some of the time. I think it was pointing the wrong way this time:

• Princesses are still a huge part of our every day life!

(Did not want to be interupted from her movie to take a pic)

Take Care, Friends!