playing the game ... again

house is officially back on the market today. sighhhhhhhhhhhh. MLS#776742
not sure how i feel about this. real estate is such a game! i guess what it really comes down to is, this is one of the only ways we can continue to pay for saylor, build and sell. and she is well worth every dime thats for sure, that doesnt bug me at all. its the selling part and its not that we have to move, as a designer i love doing another house instead of clients! i cant wait for that. its a lot of work and headache and stress and nate and i miss each other a lot and yes this year is a tough year for our family anyway with saylor needing such a big surgery but .... in general i am ok with all that. its the selling like i said, keeping it clean, waiting to hear what people think and just hearing what people dont like, the not normal living, its all in my head i cant make it go away. i wish i could just live as though we arent selling and be pleasantly surprised when an offer comes in, that is if one ever does. thats the other anxiety riser, this market sucks, nationally and locally! last year it was bad and we spent 6 months on the market and nothing now we are more than $100,000 below appraisal .... so comes another 6 months i suppose and we will see where the wind takes us. wondering what you could do by chance? i doubt it but if .... pray for us!

"experience is what you get, when you dont get what you want!"
Randy Pausch

priceless time ....

last saturday i went to visit my grandpa with my two girls, he is one of only two grandparents i have left living (and i have a lot with a divorced family,) if you can call what he is doing living. his time is short and his body is full of cancer. he has mesothelioma ... you know the kind of cancer from those law commercials about asbetos. you never thought you would know someone who actually had that right. i suppose its time for his weak frail light body to head home. i also suppose i am as ready for that as i ever will be. i am closest to him of all my grandparents, even more so than ones i lived nextdoor to. i can explain it but i wont, the bond is deep and just there! i admire this man more than words can tell. my time with him is priceless! we cried together while my girls played in the other room, he shared with me private inspirations he has about me, my husband, and kids and we talked about time and life and perspective. i love him! i really really love him.


This picture and moment will rank among the top of my life .... i love the look on saylors face that she creates from whatever this wise soul his telling her!


Storie spent some special time with grandpa great and talked about baptism. he gave her one of the last rock wired jewels he has done. it was hard and emotional for me. i loved this picture of them together and that above them on the wall is a family picture of my grandparents with all their children when they were small. my mom is the smallest and youngest in the picture.

kite runner

Yesterday i read this book from start to finish in several hours. i dont usually do that, not even with books i just love. i am typically a quick reader but dont bust it out in one day! i am not sure if the book was that good or if i just really needed to escape, i think its more the later, heavy stuff going on in my life it feels. its a tragic story. makes you think about life, about perspectives, about racism, terror, and war. its a new light of afgahnistan for me. it penetrates so deep that you dream about it and think about it for a few days.

Storie Kate O'Brien

Today is my gorgeous beautiful daughter's birthday and we have discovered that 8 is great! this year was the first year that i felt like i could show storie what being a girl is all about and she would get it and more than that enjoy it. i was more excited than her i think! Storie really didnt want to go to school so naturally i planned a day of pure girl ridiculousness! first stop the nail shop to get our toes done! check out stories gorgeous diamond studded white flower on hot pink nail polish!




then of course shopping and more shopping and then some shopping. then we stopped off for lunch. storie wanted asian food from the panda style place in the mall .... blauck ... doesnt apeal to me so i got salad from next door. we headed back home after a stop off at the floral supply wharehouse to get my work supplies for the evening and a brief rest at home before we met up with my brother joey and nadia at the mayan, stories choice of course! had a fabulous day. storie has on and off requested an amercian doll. these things are overpriced and over rated. what do you do with a doll anyway after the first 15 minutes. i have a hate/love relationhsip with toys that has changed how we do things around here as of late so i just couldnt bring myself to spend the cash. well in the end it paid off, a few weeks ago i found my old american girl molly, purchased her some items and clothing from the american girl site and freshened her up. now its sentimental! we got her a white dress, technically its like another religions holiday dress but when stripped down well it simply looks very baptism like and most of all that is what this birthday is about. cant wait for next week!

what i love about storie ...
1. she made me a mom
2. she is super smart! i cant help her with her homework sometimes!
3. she is really helpful and works her little tiny buttox off here at our house!
4. she loves to read yeah!
5. she understands the sacrafice that she must make for saylor and she is willing!
6. she loves and loves and loves until it hurts!
7. she cares already so deeply about how her friends and others feel and think about her.
8. she knows the gospel 100 times better than i did when i was 8 and she knows what covenants she is making, its not just going through the motions!
9. she is passionate about endeavors!
10. she deserves a volvo (inside family joke) if any of you have seen the volvo commercial with the little girl who talks and talks and talks to her dad, thats storie! at the end it ask ... who would you buy a volvo for? well i wish i could buy one for her!

Pantywaist & Co Launch party

its finally time for pantywaist & co to launch off the ground. its been months in the making and our site is finally ready for viewing and ordering. be patient i am sure it will take months to work out kinks! visit it here we also have a blog here

i am most excited for our launch party! it will be march 15th 2008 @ NOAHS in lindon, 644 N 2000 W, just off the freeway. hours 10am - 3pm. we are accepting multiple hosts for this event, and i think you will agree our hosting package is unbeatable! what do you have to do to host, well nothing more than mail out invites we provide to you! you will get a 5% credit for every order that is placed at the party and comes through you. that simple. please email me at info@pantywaistandco.com or call pantywaist @ 801.836.3089 for more details! there will be samples of our boy & girl custom crib sets with mounds of fabric to choose from to customize if you would like, our clothing sets and dress's, lighting, fabric, hardware, grocery cart covers, play time activities, and so much more! including an amazing photographer darla roze, she is offering special incentives to book a shoot on this day, and megan w/pink piggy design, she will have the darn cutest baby invitation and announcement around!

below is a sampling of what we have to offer!

Presidents day .... our holland anniversary

5 years ago today (presidents day) this is what we were doing.... i was getting jelly smeared all over my belly by a weak and unsure ultrasound tech who quickly escaped our wondering eyes for a real doc. it was apparent to me pretty quickly that something was wrong with saylor, but i had known that all along. Dr glen Schimmer broke the news that saylor had spina bifida, and many other deformities. this ultrasound image capturing those moments in still form is a priceless posession of ours, a ticket to holland, one we would never ever trade for any other place anywhere in the galaxy! i am just so grateful that we were sent a "perfect" one and that 5 years later she is still a perfect part of our lives. no doubt, this is a life for all of us in this little family that is challenging, but we are still up to it!

what lies ahead of you, and what lies behind you, are nothing compared to what lies within you!
author unkown!

salt lake tribune

i recently was contacted by the tribune, they were possibly interested in including our situation with saylor & the dspd waiting list in the article so they called me for more info. after talking to me for a few minutes and finding out just how special saylor really is they set up an interview which ultimately ended up at snowbird for convenience while saylor was skiing.

i am pleased with the article, and feel that it made my time at the state capital building a little more worth it. it also gives me a voice and some power to do something about how this state cares for its disabled children, i dont know that this will mean funding for saylor but it will mean something to us!

Garland H Sutton

my great aunt becky ...

lost her husband this last week after a long beautiful life. i went to california to be with her and my family this week to burry him ... garland hugh sutton 9.8.1919 - 2.4.2008

this ... this is why i went. becky, grieving the loss of her love of life, garland! seeing him in his casket for the first and last time, precious moments caught my a camera. when i was battling whether to go or not a friend of mine told my one thing, it made my decision ... she said "you will never regret going, but you will regret not going." i dont regret going in the least bit and how grateful i am for inspired friends who love me. becky is why i went. i wanted to be there for her. she has been a huge part my life as an extended family member. at all my lifes events ... i needed to be there for her for this life event. if i could narrow down what i have learned from becky & garland it would be down to this one important thing .. family .... reach as far as you can and be a part of all you can. how many great aunts and uncles do you know that well?



checked fresh flowers and supplies on the plain with me ... i just couldnt bare for someone else to do it. for a few years now for me that has been a healing thing as i have said goodbye to a few friends & family. i was so worried that my creativeness would not be appreciates, its more quality than quanitity for me, it always has been. in the end it was my style and i guess thats what i wanted so i had to let go of my concern for all else.


my dad was a pall bearer, this is him laying his flower on the casket. the other is my dad's mother (my grandmother, becky's sister in law) at the graveside, grandma and her nack for fashion even when she is nearly dead! got to love it!



Becky when the flag began to be unfolded this just broke my heart!


I managed to stay relatively emotionally reserved throughout the day until the military breaks out. what is with me, why then? especially after this last week of total frustration with our government. i asked myself that and simply comes down to that i have deep deep gratitude for the freedoms i experience here in this country and even more gratitude for those that have fought for me to have it and those that are still fighting, it really gets me.... every time!




A few details i did not want to forget ... becky holding tight to casket flowers, her wise skin, the pearls and heart necklace she wore.



i had a blast spending time with my dad, glen, grandma, becky, cousins, and family! its sad that this kind of thing is what brings us together, but it is, especially for me! i need to be better about this. ashley you broke my heart with your longing to be home - i have felt that, i know what you were feeling!

old friends ...

this is my old friend jill & her hub jarom. i came across her blog a few weeks back through mutual aquantences (i know i cant spell!). tonight since nate is out of town i find myself with a little bit of catch up time on some blogging and i thought i would check a few blogs so i went to jill's and what do i find ... a link to my blog. its been a really long time since we have seen each other a few years at least and even longer since we have spent any real time together, i am thinking 15 years at least. we live in the same town how pathetic is that. we were friends in our teen years and used to be very close, we went through those rough years together were you make mistakes and your sure you know everything. i have nothing but good memories with jill & miss her gorgeousness in my life. she has turned out some darling kids! check her blog out here.

nate - well nate he is friends with i would say about 90% of his childhood friends still and see's most of them on a regular basis, i see most of them on a regular basis too! and some of them married my friends and those who didnt, well their wives have become my closest friends. whats wrong with me? i seem to drift away. i have few childhood friends that i am still in real friendships with! i guess people just go different ways. here we think men have shallow relationships with their friends but maybe theirs are the deeper stronger ones?

so this got me to thinking about some people we have lost touch with. i thought hey what a blessing this blogging world is, chances are i might find a few if i just google possible blog names. and i did find a few, including the camberlangos.



so this is kim and jay. way back when, i went to von curtis with kim, we became pretty good friends. at the time she was dating jay and jay was friends with nate ... so you can see where this is going. yes its true we have these two to thank for our beautiful lives together! nate and i actually got married a few weeks before they did, we are fast movers i guess. we stayed close for a few years and then our lives took us in very different directions! nate and I kind of got lost in holland when we had Saylor and lost contact with a lot of people including the camberlangos, things got so intense and i was so sick for a while the best we could do was focus on our little family and get through one more day of keeping both saylor and I alive. boy am i glad those days have passed and we made it through! jay if your reading this you should know we named our youngest middle name "jae" (feminine form) not really after you but we can pretend right? hope you all are doing well and that the sun is making you warm, while you enjoy that, nate and i are enjoying way to much snowboarding and loving utah.

so to two of my long lost friends ... my door, my phone and email (audreyobrien@msn.com or info@studiostems.com) are always open to you!

eggs & legislatures

so my experience yesterday left me more than a little frustrated with our government. i wont get into all the details but i have spent much of my day thinking about how i can make what feels like a negative experience and waste of my time positive and valuable. this is what i have come up with. another mom who testified on behalf of the same bill i did, brought with her a raw egg for an analogy. i really amazing analogy that was so simple but so easy for people to get .... it goes something a little like this.

having a disabled child is a little like carrying a raw egg around with you, not just with you but in your hand. try it. its hard. everything takes a little longer, and you must be a little more careful and if your egg cracks you must emergencize the situation. sometimes fluid leaks out and you are left with a mess to clean up. but your just like everyone else you have to do what everyone else does its just harder. getting the waiver funding that we need to get medicaid for these families that make to much to qualify otherwise is like giving them a carton to carry the egg around in, a protector. still have to carry the egg around but, it becomes a little easier with adequate help.

need i say anymore, there really was no better way to explain. i wish i could make them all carry around an egg through the whole period of political decision making to remind them that i carry around saylor all day every day for her whole life.

fear & responsibility

this is where i will be today, speaking in front of a few legislatures & their staff. so nervous! but how can i pass up an opportunity to make a difference. I am speaking on how being on the DSPD waiting list without medicaid services for saylor has affected us over the last 5 years. pray for me! i want so badly to make such a profound impact that no matter how the vote turns out this mom, and her family's circumstances will not be forgotten!