Friday, December 30, 2011

Honesty

I deleted this post. The name is this blog is All About Evey--not all about the drama of Eve's friends.

If I wanna air my dirty laundry--I will--but despite wanting to figure out things about this friend--and writing this was helpful and I learned a lot--I don't think it's fair for me to keep published a story about someone else's life.

So I'll keep to stories about my own drama. And to make sure that I'm posting on a more regular basis, I'm going to go out and create lots of horrible and exciting drama!




Thursday, December 22, 2011

Pet Sitting

I am petsitting to make some money to pay the rent.

Here are the glorious details of this beautiful adventure.

Bloo is part black lab/part siberian husky. She's still a puppy really. She has giant paws with sharp nails. She likes to jump up on me to show me that she loves me.  She loves to play ball. Sometimes when we play I am standing and she bounds towards me with the ball, crashing into me with her teeth, her claws and her whole body. I have all sorts of scratches all over from this fun pasttime.

I have adapted the game in order to preserve my life. Now I sit in a reclining love seat and watch tv. I open up the doors. I throw the ball down the hall. The dog bounds off after the ball and brings the drool covered tennis ball back to me. I make her release it so that it will roll towards my hip. I do not grab the ball from her snarling mouth. Then I throw the ball again. The funny part is that she is so much like the little dog on Toy Story 3. She'll trot towards me with the ball and then see another toy she wants to play with. She'll drop the ball and play, then go after the ball, but see something else she wants to play with.

The game consists of Me: Throw. Sit and watch some random tv show. Bloo: Bounds towards ball. Plays with bone. Plays with piece of wood. Plays with chew toy. Brings ball to me. Me: Throw. Sit and watch random tv show. 

It is enjoyable for both of us. And less painful.

The cat.

The cat is very old and suffering from a kidney disorder that makes her pee and poop everywhere. She is confined to one room. This room is smelly. Every morning I clean up the pee and the poop and feed her. That's pretty much it. When I agreed to do this, I was most concerned about the grossness of dealing with a litter box. I shouldn't have been concerned. This is worse. Much worse.

But I'm making money over the holidays during a time when I can't substitute. So I am indeed grateful for this chance to make some money.




Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Driving with Girls

My sister Bethany is learning to drive and because I'm the only person she knows who has an automatic--I'm the lucky girl who is teaching her!

Teaching someone to drive is the scariest thing in the world. Scarier than predatory birds. Scarier than clowns. Scarier than evil toddlers.

She studied long and hard before we got behind the wheel and is sufficiently humbled by the task, but she has sooo little experience driving.  The other thing that scares me is that I'm responsible to make sure that she is a good driver once she gets her license. I don't want to forget to teach her anything!

We started off driving around Rose Park. We drove around the neighborhood, parking lots, and practiced three point turns. The next trip--I took her out at night and we want on bigger highways and practiced left hand turns at lights. We drove up 300 West, around the Capitol, past the temple and back to her apartment.

The next trip we drove from 600 North and Redwood Road down to 4500 south and over to State Street and back up State Street. It was 1pm, so traffic wasn't too bad, but it was still pretty busy.

We practiced changing lanes and she did a great job turning left on some pretty scary roads. I didn't drive on anything that complicated until later in my driving, but the girl lives in downtown SLC, so she's gotta get used to the busy roads.

The next trip--we drove on... THE FREEWAY! We went down to the Kmart on 90th South. She was great! I thought I would die. It was so scary. But we made it! And she did a great job! Then we drove back! And she did that too! Wahoo!

Tonight was all about learning to navigate. We drove to the airport--through the airport, and then went west almost to Tooele. I thought it would be good freeway time, but also I wanted her to learn to follow the signs at the airport, etc. By the time we got to the exit for Tooele, my nerves had had it. She's a great driver, but she forgets to keep her foot on the gas. And I was scared. So I drove home. I figured a trip through the airport and out west was enough for one day.

This Christmas, I don't have money for gifts. But I'm trying to give the gift of my time. I'm trying to give words and gifts that are reminiscent of the kinds of gifts Heavenly Father gives to me. Hope, inspiration, love. I'm really not cheap, but I want to focus on giving meaningful experiences and memories. These driving lessons have been a wonderful opportunity to give my little sister a useful life skill and I get to spend time getting to know the sister I barely knew until last year. It's been a real gift for me.