Directionless

I feel like I've entered the phase in my life where I'm no longer waiting for life to happen to me, but starting to make life happen. When we're children, so much of our lives is dictated to us. In young adulthood, we start making more decisions, but somethings are still left to time and chance, such as getting married and finding a good job. Of course, there are opportunities throughout that time for us to figure out who we are and some of the things we want from life, but we're never really forced to. Especially when we get out of high school, many of the activities and hobbies fall away as we discover that we're not as into them as we thought we were when there was an organization spoon-feeding them to us (music, drama, art, etc).

Now, I find myself in a place where I wonder what my interests really are and what I really want to accomplish in life. I can tell you that I used to be interested in music and playing interests, but I don't play/practice them very much currently. Does that mean that I'm not interested any more, or that I'm just not forced or motivated? I'm certain that I have unreached musical potential, but do I care enough to dedicate my time and energy to reach it, or at least approach it?

It seems like I should have a passion in life, something that I look forward to, other than my family and my job. My fear is that if I continue living "comfortably", I'll not be really living, but just surviving. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that my life is going relatively well currently, but given that it is going well, shouldn't I be utilizing this time do become something better? Maybe I just need to take up crocheting again!

Burning Barn - 1974

This is a story that my dad told me recently on the phone that I hadn't heard before, so I wanted to share it in case anyone else would be interested in the story. This was about 1974, which means that dad and mom were still married, Randy would have been about 3 and Diana would have been 1.

The family was living in a little house in Meridian on Ten Mile road. This was the first house that mom lived in, in Idaho and the house that they brought baby Diana home to. The house had a little land with it and in the back was a small livestock barn. Mom and dad had bought some calves and one of Aunt Barbara Ann's kids had caught a pig at the fair, but didn't have any place to raise it, so that was in the barn too. They had bred the pig and she was pregnant.

One day, dad was burning some weeds in the back and after he had finished, he went to work (his second job). He had a night job of cleaning the floors at a grocery store. What he didn't know is that there were some boards nearby that were still smoldering from the fire and unfortunately they caught on fire and were near enough to the barn to catch it on fire as well.

In the middle of the night, someone noticed and started beating on the front door of the house telling mom that the barn was on fire. Mom called dad at work and he put away the floor buffer and came home, but by the time he got there it was too late. The pig had started giving birth that night in barn, but just before she had the last piglet, she broke out and had the last one outside the fire. All of the calves and all but one of the baby pigs died in the fire. The mother pig was so traumatized that she wouldn't feed the one baby that survived and mom tried to bottle feed it, but to no avail, the final baby pig died.

Unfortunately since dad left work before his shift was done, he was fired from that job. Also when the landlord found out about the barn burning, he evicted the family. They ended up having the mother pig butchered because they had no place to keep her. After that they moved into the first 14' wide trailer they lived in, which was actually a much nicer house than the old one.

Here is a picture (taken in 2012) of the house. When they lived there, there was open fields surrounding the house with only one house to the north and now it is almost exclusively housing developments. There were out building that they used for storage and a chicken coop that are still there, but the garage and barn are gone now.

Such A Pleasant Day

Today marks 3 months into our marriage and we decided (a few weeks ago) to celebrate Valentines today as well. One of our wedding presents was a gift certificate to probably the most high-end spa in the area: the Broadmoor. I had never been to a spa, but it certainly sounded enticing.

We decided to get a "couples" massage, which means that we would each have our own masseuse, but would receive the massages in the same room at the same time. The "couples" aspect was a bit lost on me, as I was either face-down or eyes-covered for the entire massage, but it was nice knowing he was there. I'm getting ahead of myself.

First, when you get there, they take you into the locker room, with customizable pin-entered lockers, which leads into the aroma therapy room, dry sauna and eucalyptus steam rooms. Outside of that, was a small room with a fire place and dried fruit (from locker-room to fireplace area is girls only). Down the hall, is the mountain-view room, which is co-ed. Every room has soft music playing and everyone is walking around in fuzzy blue bath robes and rubber sandals. In the mountain-view room, is fresh fruit, citrus or cucumber water and several kinds of fresh tea. Not to mention the cushy chairs, blankets, newspapers and magazines.

Once you're all settled in, the masseuse comes to take you to dream-land. I've had massages before, but never with this much pamper involved. The massage table was heated, the oil used was aroma therapy, during part of the massage I had my feet wrapped in hot towels and my eyes draped with a cool compress, not to mention that when I flipped over to my back, the massage table could raise at the head and knees, like Craftmatic adjustable beds, but on a smaller scale. Not to mention that she could also raise and lower the whole massage table at her whim.

This woman was incredibly thorough in her massage and made sure to focus on the problem areas I told her about before (low-back and hips). I melted under her touch and was hesitant to leave the room when our session had ended.

After the massage was steam-room, using the iced towels provided. Then a further relaxing shower, with a temperature gauge for the water. Followed by a minute in the aroma therapy

room and a few minutes in the sauna. Afterward, I decided to check out the complimentary hair care area.

This room was larger than most walk-in closets I've been in, with three different counters, each equipped with blow dryer, curling iron, hair spray, gel, spray deodorant, magnifying and lit makeup mirror, cushioned seat, and sanitized hair brushes and combs. Also available throughout the locker room was lotion, tissues, q-tips,

mouthwash, and single-use razors. I have to say though, after the massage and the shower, all I wanted to do was cuddle up and take a nap.

One final feature that I have to cover about my trip to the spa was the toilet. Hopefully it's not TMI, but you can skip this part if you want. First of all, the seats were heated - very nice. However, they also had something I had never tried before: bidet capability. Yes, it gently sprays water on your nether parts, once you're ready. And the fun part is that you have options, such as location (front-back), pressure, style (pulsing, stream, spray), etc. And once you're finished, it will even blow your bum dry. Though a bit odd at first, this is now something I want. Why has this country not adopted these things as a standard yet??

When we finally convinced ourselves that it was probably time to leave, we luckily hailed a shuttle bus to the parking garage and nearly floated home. Beautiful. Being relaxed doesn't make me any more sane, it just makes me more okay with my insanity.