I suffer from depression

I have depressions. Some days are a lot better then others. These last few months have not been my best. The biggest reason that I am writing this post is because if by my admitting and writing about the fact that I have depression, that I am currently taking medication for, will help one person not be too ashamed to seek help then it is worth it.
I think most people suffer from bouts of depression. This makes it hard for them to understand the deep dark depression that people like me have.
I get up in the morning because I have 3 kids under 10. I need to get the oldest 2 off to school. If there wasn't that hanging over my head every morning I would spend a lot more time in my bed. After getting the older 2 off to school there are a lot of days, more often then not, that nothing else gets accomplished.
It is such a downward spiral. I see everything that needs to get done and know I need to. I just don't have the drive to get it done. And when it doesn't happen there is the guilt. Then the self doubt.
One day I will be able to figure out what my triggers are, or if I even have any triggers. What I do know is this is something that I will always have to deal with. There is no getting completely away from it. What it all comes down to is how well I am coping. Like I said before, there are days that are better then others.
My goal right now is to have more of the better days.

Oh the joy of being a daughter, sister, wife and mother during the holidays

Oh how I do not look forward to this time of the year. I am one of those people that don't believe in Christmas until after Thanksgiving. Now that we live away from both my family and my in-laws I look forward less and less to the holiday season. I am almost to the point where I push getting ready for Halloween until the very last because I know once Halloween there is no putting off planning for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
I love Thanksgiving and Christmas. I just really hate all the stress that comes along with these two holidays for me. Why is it that two of the most family oriented Holiday have to happen just weeks apart? This year there is just shy of 4 weeks between the two.
Growing up we spent every single Thanksgiving and Christmas at my grandma's house until I was seventeen or eighteen. It kind of surprised me when a couple years ago I decided that we were staying home for Christmas. The biggest obstacle was alternating which family we were spending Christmas Eve, and morning with. I wonder if my parents ever wanted to just stay home for Christmas all those years that they packed up all of us kids and presents. I treasure the memories from those years so I am grateful they didn't.
So the other issue with this time of year. The guilt. I feel guilty not giving my kids the memories of spending Christmas our extended family. I know this is kind of silly, but it is the truth. I also know that we are making memories as well.
Even though I do have the guilt, I also know that I made the right decision for me. It has taken me a VERY LONG time to realize that I can do things differently. And as hard as it is, I have also learned that I can say no. There is only so much that I have to give and my 3 boys and husband deserve to have me at my best. Well the best that I can be at the moment anyway. I will be the first to say that I am far from perfect. Really far from being perfect.
I don't even know if this post makes any sense. As I am rereading it seems like I am rambling.
I just decided I am going to keep my eye set on the end of this year. There is only 42 days left. I can do 42 days. Once January is here I don't have to worry about Thanksgiving and Christmas for another 10 months! Oh how wonderful it sounds.

Dark Brown Sugar

A few years ago I mistakenly bought a couple bags of dark brown sugar. I turned them into caramel popcorn. I was hooked.
Sometime later I was watching this cooking show and they were explaining how to make the best chocolate chip cookies. They said to use dark brown sugar. When I make these cookies I get TONS of compliments.
Tonight I wanted to make to make a caramel popcorn. Normally I like gooey caramel popcorn, but tonight I was going for crunchy. I don't have a recipe that I like for a crunchy caramel popcorn so I did a quick search. The first one I pulled up said to use microwave popcorn and then to keep the popcorn warm in the oven. There is probably a reason for this, but it just seemed like more then I wanted to do. So I scroll down and see a recipe for Salted Caramel Popcorn. The recipe is simple and it is salty caramel so of course I had to try it.
I would post a link to the original recipe, but I kind of butchered it. I ended up putting 2 c. dark brown sugar instead of 1 cup light brown sugar. If that wasn't enough I put a full cup of corn syrup instead of only 1/3. I had the syrup, sugar and butter (1 cup) on the stove on low because my sugar was hard as a rock and so almost forgot the salt. It was suppose to have 1 teaspoon, I did closer to 2. Luckily it turned out. The caramel was perfect.

The other thing that dark brown sugar does is give your finished product a darker brown color. e original plan was to add candy corn and chocolate candies, but it is way to good to do that!

a little stressed

Some how I got into my head that we had a dentist appointment on Oct. 10. I took the kids out of school and we went in for this appointment. We got to the dentists office about 15 minutes early. As we are sitting there waiting for the office to reopen after lunch I got a feeling that I had gotten the appointment wrong. I called the office and got the message that they were out of the office last week. I checked the texts they had sent the day before and read 16 not 10. Next time I think I will take an extra second to actually read the texts before replying yes to them. I didn't read them because I was in the middle of trying to get things ready for mutual that night and had a couple other texts I needed to reply to. All excuses I know, but it makes me feel better.
It actually doesn't make me feel better. We made a day of it with the kids, but when it comes down to it, I still had to take the kids out of school for our actual appointment.
Our appointment went well for everyone but me. I hate that I have such terrible teeth. All of my molars have huge fillings, partial crowns or crowns. one of the huge fillings have a part that was smoothed down below my gum line. It has finally come to the point where it is causing problems. I am almost to the point of gum disease. Fun, right? Aggressive treatment is just crowning the tooth. Less aggressive is a prescription mouth wash.
So most of the time I don't mind this small town that we live in. Every time I have to fill a prescription I complain. The closest pharmacy is 50 miles away. When you are paying cash for every prescription until your deductible is met you go where it is cheapest. I have NEVER had so many problems with filling prescriptions. I am not saying it is pharmacy's fault. A lot of it is that the prescriptions were written in one state and I am filling them in another. It becomes a huge problem when I wait around all day to get the prescription only to find out that they weren't able to fill. I love to drive, but having to make 2 trips to pick up 1 prescription?
So this is not the direction I had planned on going with this post. I was going to talk about how stressed I have been filling lately, and reading the appointment date wrong was just a manifestation of the stress. In a way though the prescription also play a role in this.
I do love my life. It just a little stressful right now.

This is me

 It has been a while. The blog kind of went to the very back burner of my life. I think sometimes we have grand plans, but then life happens.
 This has been on my mind a lot lately. Probably for 2 or 3 years and so I want to address it.
 I want to start out by saying, I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Aka Mormon. The members of the church have gotten a lot of flack in recent years because of their stance on same sex marriage. This past weekend a number of General Conference talks referred to this topic. What I want to say is this:
 Yes I am a Mormon. No I don't agree with same sex marriage because I believe marriage is between a man and a woman with the purpose to conceive children. It takes a man and a woman to make a child. That child may be conceived the old fashioned way or with the help of a test tube, but it still takes a woman's egg and man's sperm to create a child.
 What does my belief mean when I am talking one on one with you? Absolutely NOTHING! We live in a wonderful country founded on religious freedom. This means that I get to believe what I believe even when it is different from what you believe. Isn't that beautiful! I think it is.
 It does not mean that I hate you because of how you are living your life.
 I believe that EVERYONE is a Child of our Heavenly Father. To me this means that I get to love you.
 Life is too short to hate anyone because they are not the same as me.
 Am I perfect? Nope. I have a lot to work on, and everyday I plan on it.

Gun debate

I honestly think that we as a country are focusing on the wrong end of the mass shooting. If a person wants to get a hold of a gun he/she will. Just like if someone wants drugs they will find them. We need to make sure every American is covered by public or private insurance for all MENTAL health problems. I have a friend that has insurance that will not cover the medicine check for her children with ADHD. It is required that we take our children in every three to six months to be seen by a doctor, but some insurance companies refuse to cover these visits. This is just for ADHD. A common metal health issue. What about those who are bi-polar, manic depressant or Schizophrenia? When this issue has been properly addressed by the government then we can take another look at gun control. Guns don't kill people. It is the person pulling the trigger. Please, let's make it easier for these people to find the help they need before it gets to this point. Just my opinion. Thanks

thank you

This post is directed to the man that I crossed paths with in Walmart last week. You probably have not given me a second thought. I on the other hand think about you. Why do I think about you? Because I wish I had turned to you and told you thank you. You were talking with the lady you were with when you came within five feet of me. I can not remember exactly what you said. What I remember is that you censored yourself. I had already in my mind heard exactly what you had planned on saying and so was surprised when you didn't actually say it. The word you were going to say has become such a huge part of everyday talk. You can't even go to the Elementary with out hearing a child utter the word. This does not mean that I do not cringe every time I hear it uttered by someone.
You don't know me and I don't know you. This was a chance run in where we just crossed paths, but thank you for your consideration. I appreciate it and wish that I had turned to you at the time and thanked you.