I'm a Loser, I'm a Winner

So judging from the title of this post, ya'all probably thought I'd go into some rant about not having any friends or something. Ha. Shows what you know.

This post shall be about something I've kept pretty quiet about on here. Back a few months ago this summer, I was texted a flyer by a few different people about a photo contest the hospital was having. I decided to give it a go, though I am not a landscape photographer and know full well I'm no good at it.

The rules were that I could submit up to 20 photos and really, that was it. No other rules.

I decided that if I was going to have a chance, well then I better get busy because it was probably going to take 19 tries to get one good one.

So I took my camera everywhere and tried, and didn't do so well, to take good photos. And then the deadline came and I submitted 20 ho-hum photos. And then came the waiting... and waiting... and waiting.

Finally, an email stating first, second and third place... it wasn't me. I was crushed. It tore me open and made me want to quit. Honestly, along with other photo related problems, it was a cross-road... and I wanted off the train.

But I had no time for self-pity and loathing because busy season started with a roar and I was off again.

Fast forward to two weeks ago. I sat down at my computer and opened up an email:

"Hi Alyson,

Several of your photos were selected for display in the medical plaza.  Please send me your mailing address so a check can be issued."

My heart leapt out of my chest. I was getting another chance!! I called Trevor, screaming it out that I had been chosen!! We had to go to the open house so we could see which picture they had chosen!

One week later we were in the hospital starting our tour. We rounded the first corner. There at the end of the hallway was my photo. I turned to tell Trevor, and there on the wall beside me was another. We walked a few more feet. Another one. I told the tour guide they were my photos. She said the one at the end of the hallway was her favorite and she had been pointing it out on her tours all day. 

It became a game. Is this your photo? No. There's one! We came to the end of the tour. Samantha had kept track. Thirteen photos out of the twenty I submitted. 

300 photos in total had been submitted in the contest. I'm not sure how many were printed, but if I had to guess I'd say 30 were printed, maybe 40, but no more. 

I can't tell you what a miracle this feels like to me. I really have no words to describe the feelings I have right now. Heavenly Father loves me. I'm so grateful. I'm not a landscape photographer, but miraculously I became one for one small moment in time. I felt His love for me in that moment. 

The EIGHT days of Christmas

This year I had the last minute idea to have my kids draw names out of a hat and whoever ' s name they draw,  they get to serve that person anonymously until Christmas. This just started today, but I could see this going hand in hand with the regular Twelve Days of Christmas service that we regularly do every year.

I'm a genious!

Okay, I know it wasn't me that came up with that. Thank you, Heavenly Father.

My Christmas shopping is all done!!! YAY!

I have one home-made gift to finish! YAY!

The twelve days of Christmas started today and we got it all taken care of!

I don't think we have ever been so on top of Christmas!

Bring it on!

a Non-Existence

It's been three years since we started our journey here in our little town.

Three years.

Three years!!!

We've lived in a LOT of different places, and let me tell you that after two years I had already made best friends for life.

So what the heck?

I know I say it a lot on here, but you have no idea what it's like!

Also, I had a few run-ins this week with people from my ward, and they were not good ones.

I feel just as new today as I did when we moved here.

and I'm lonely for a friend.

This week the checker at the store tried to talk to Will and got a sad frowny face from him. She started laughing and said "He has a grumpy face just like his mom!!" and then she said it over and over LOUDLY, telling the other checkers and shoppers. Sounds dumb, but I've always tried to be super happy and upbeat when I go in there. Definitely not grumpy. It's dumb, but yeah, it wasn't the right time to say it to me because I'm already feeling uber sensitive about having no friends. It hurt my feelings.

Then there was the facebook incident which shall remain detail-less.

Then there was the cleaning the church fiasco in which Trevor and I were supposed to head the Saturday cleaning, except no one told us and we got a text at 9:30 Friday night asking what time we were meeting the next morning. The problem was that we had already booked ourselves to go to Logan's robotic competition all day Saturday!!! So Trevor called the Bishop who told us "it's been in the bulletin". Gee thanks. Then Trevor called and left a message with the guy in charge, since he didn't answer, and I texted the person back who had texted us in the first place. This is a lady in the ward who I think might possibly be nice and a person to get close to. So I thought I'd be honest and real with her because I've always thought that being real helps to endear people to you. I said something about how we've already promised to go to this thing in the morning, and I feel like a loser because I didn't know we were in charge and how we've been late for church and missed the bulletin, so we had no idea, and how I was sorry to leave her in the lurch, but we called the guy in charge to let him know. And here's the response I got back: "Can I get his number?" (referring to the guy in charge). Nothing else. No joke. a one line response, completely ignoring anything else I said.

I know it doesn't sound like much, but can you understand just a little bit what it's like to live in the emotionless, friendless world that I live in here?

And then there was today's incident which was really just me being sensitive, but I asked a girl if she would be willing to trade babysitting with me while I went to a photo shoot next week. I told her that I could trade her pictures, or cards or anything photo related. She messaged me back telling me she didn't want anything I had to trade, but I could donate money to the school. But you guys, THAT WAS THE WHOLE POINT OF THE TRADE!!!! I DON'T HAVE ANY MONEY!!! And her not wanting anything I have to offer is exactly what is wrong with the people here. No one wants anything I have to offer. Not my friendship, not my service, not my photos... nothing!

It's like I don't exist.

Did I ever tell you...

I can't remember if I ever told you all about Logan's other doctor appointment. I took him to our family doc to have his ears assessed. This was two days after the ear pain incident.

If I already told this story, just skip this post. I honestly can't remember and my brain has left the building for the month. It's on vacation.

So the doc looked in both his ears and scraped and cleaned all the wax out that she could.  Logan said his ears have never felt cleaner. Gross. The right ear had a ton of wax, while the left ear had just a bit, but not much. The left ear is the one with hearing loss.

The right ear was swollen and red, while the left ear was not swollen, but maybe just a hint of red. The left ear drum had a white spot on it, the right ear had no spot.

The spot could be a number of things,  but more than likely an old scar from an old illness, which scars cause hearing loss.

I know someone out there is reading this and laughing because I am butchering the explanation of this. Sorry. Lol. This visit was like two weeks ago, and remember that my brain went on vacation, so.....

We received a referral to an ENT and a round of antibiotics. Meanwhile Logan is using an Audio Trainer at school. This is basically a personal microphone system that his teacher wears while she is teaching, and he wears ear buds set up to receive the signal from her mic. It is helping so much already! It's so much easier to concentrate when you can hear what's going on.

This story is just beginning, I'm sure. More on this later.