good grief

Three weeks ago Gabriel comes home telling me that this girl from the Latin American Chamber of Commerce who is originally from Honduras wanted to have us over for Honduran food when she found out I was a missionary there. Ok. Then it began. The creeping fear of meeting strangers and not knowing what to say to them and wanting to not do it and wanting to be told I didn't have to do it. A few weeks went by and Gabriel said he needed to confirm with this girl for friday because she was planning it for us and another couple. I said fine hoping someone would get the flu or something.
Thursday comes along...this past thursday the 16th... and I had had a difficult day feeling under appreciated in my world and wishing that I had a new shiny blackberry like Gabriel and new shiny clothes like my kids and new shiny skin like my kids and time to run on a treadmill like Gabriel and new shiny amazingness like everyone seems to have when you're looking around and not close up enough to realize that everyone isn't blissfully thrilled to be doing what they're doing. Anyway, I had a breakdown lying in my bed after all these random feelings of self-woe and I said to Gabriel, (while weeping) "Please just don't make me go eat pupusas with those peopuuuhuhuhuuulllll!"
Gabriel then promised he would hold my hand the whole time and every minute over 45 that we were there he would give me $10.

as any enterprising young woman would be, I was fine with that.

Friday came and my parents had the girls and we set off to the avenues to meet strangers and pretend we love them and their house and everything they make to eat and say to us like you're supposed to when you meet strangers.
We get out of the car on a dark deserted street and walk up to a dark seemingly deserted house and knock on the door which opens with no one visibly opening it.
Upon crossing the threshold the roaring screams of "SUUURPPRRRIIIISSSSEEEE! happy birthday!!!" fly to my ears....
tears.
tears, people.
tears of relief, tears of happy, tears of glad, tears of how could I not have realized I was outside my friend Marsha's house when we drove up. just tears.
Gabriel is so nice he put together a little thing for my birthday almost two weeks before my birthday thus allaying any suspicion that anyone would be thinking about my birthday at all. I wasn't even thinking about my birthday, only dinner with strangers.
but there they were....my little friends from a window of my life that I loved in college and who continue to be my dearest folks.
There was a chocolate fountain.
There was a replica of the red velvet cake from my wedding 5 years ago that I never tasted due to unforeseen refrigerator malfunctions 5 years ago.
there were presents in happy boxes from anthropologie and conversations and happiness and so on.
I seriously haven't ever really been surprised ...on purpose I guess. I even make appointments to give birth to my children I'm such a control freak....well, it worked! I was surprised. thank you Gabriel and everyone else for playing along.

Speaking of control and the lack thereof....Gabriel left the country yesterday for a week and I thought I would just jaunt over to my parent's house around lunch to see what was going on for a while before nap time here at my house would begin. We got to the garage with both cars to choose from so, of course I picked the smaller, faster one which parks easier than my bigger family one. Sharon and Lewi live 15 seconds from seat belt click in my garage to knock on their door so the girls just hopped in the car with no safety seats etc.
About 10 minutes into my visit there is a knock at the door and the across the street neighbor is telling me that they have just hit the car while backing out of their garage (and reading a note at the same time it turns out).
oh, no, not my domestic fix it anywhere car.
gabriel's car.
the foreign one with the 3 letters and the zeroes in the price any time you want to fix anything.

I park in that exact same spot EVERY SINGLE DAY! I mean every day. People park all along the street in this neighborhood every single day and I always see them....I never hit them. I never read while I back into them.
so now (see social inadequacy above) I am having to talk to strangers and work out a problem that I didn't create and it makes me sick. poor Gabriel hadn't even been gone 4 hours when his little car gets hurt.

life

I'm having a little problem wanting to devour my little Ruby. She is scrumptious. You know what I mean, like you get all anxious just to bite them! just eat them up! If she ever learns to say her r's I'm sure she will still be cute but something about a speech impedement and a pixie haircut and big blue eyes is driving me crazy with cuteness! "Look, mom, what aw dows twees? aw dey deciduous twees? o aw dey evowgween twees?"
good grief.
stop the madness.
so cute.

I am kind of all about minerals. Mineral powder, mineral blush, mineral foundation, minerals, minerals, minerals. so good. Also, I don't know if I've mentioned before that clinical strength deodorant is actually nigh unto a 3-d walking miracle from heaven. i mean it's not that, 'wow, my sweat doesn't smell at all' it's 'OH MY GOODNESS, I DON'T EVEN SWEAT ANYMORE!! sweat? what's that? I don't even sweat. I don't know what you're talking about.'
craziness.
I mean it's called Secret but people, I am yelling it from the rooftops....stop the sweating....MAKE YOURSELF LIKE A PRE-PUBESCENT CHILD AND NEVER SWEAT AGAIN! use it. buy it. follow the instructions and change your life.

forever.

that and these little chocolate dipped Blue bunny Popsicles that come, unfortunately, in a box of 20 and I cannot get enough of them.

that and it's my birthday in 8 days.
and I can't wait till that Tinker Bell movie comes out on the 28th because I'm insane.
And I'm obsessed with Genghis Khan after watching that movie Mongol last night.
adieu, adieu
to yur and yur and yur.