No girl wants to marry a doctor who can't tell if a man's dead or not!*

I had a crazy dream last night. I was being chased by a bear. I wouldn't say that the bear was charging me or anything but even in my dreams, a bear isn't really something I want to get close to. I would move and the bear would follow. I would move faster and the bear would get faster. It was scary for Dream-Jessica, being stalked by a bear. I eventually ran up the stairs of the porch my Dream-Home (a cabin in the woods, who would have thought) and four dogs jumped up, they let me through and then kept the bear at bay. I woke up with an uneasy feeling, the kind of heart racing only dreams seem able to produce. I kept thinking about my dream, what's it mean? So, I did what any dreamer would do...I google three main components of my dream. Being chased, the bear, the dogs.

• Being chased - anxiety about an environmental factor
• Being chased by a bear - BIG anxiety...usually overwhelming obstacles or competition
• Dogs - symbolizing that your strong values and good intentions can help you conquer. They also symbolize your friends (loyalty and the such)

It was very interesting to learn these new things this morning, and kind of helps me understand Subconscious-Jessica.

So...I think the bear is the well, or lack of the well. I didn't get the loan by the way. I will get a letter of explanation, but part of me thinks I know the explanation, I haven't really had the house that long. So, I was back to square one. I was looking over the county website about connecting to the county water line and was confused on the numbers, so I decided to do the unJessica - I called. I was scared, I always sound like an idiot with these types of things (like I did with the well people).

The phone was answered quickly and I thought, "That's nice"* but it was a false sense of security. I was quickly "transferred" and then transferred again. But I finally got to speak to one lady and I told her that I was looking into connecting to the county line but I had a few questions about the pricing page on the website. From there we got to talking about my options and it turns out that I don't have to pay the amount in full before they start to do the work...wha?? I guess somewhere along the line my sources misunderstood. So I am going to speak to Katie in financing and we are going to discuss doing this sooner rather than later. And there's no penalty to pay the county back early, so should I get a hefty bonus and decide I want to just get rid of my debt to Henrico County, I could.

In other news - it's supposed to snow here tomorrow. We shall see.

What's that have to do with the price of eggs?*

Today's lesson: Attitude is everything.

I had yesterday off, no real rhyme or reason. I have 2 days of PTO to take before the 31st (the other 5 are coming with me to 2011 and California) or I lose them. So I looked at my work schedule and took yesterday and next Monday off. I wanted Fridays, but my Fridays for the rest of the year are either too busy or already taken care of (a.k.a. Holidays). So Mondays it is.

I didn't do much yesterday. I didn't do much all weekend. I don't think I've really had days like that for a while because I have to tell you, it feels great. Not even my stupid well could bring me down (okay, Saturday was plagued by remorse, grief, and general ticked off-ness about the well). My brother-in-law inadvertently made me cry Saturday morning, but it started as a good cry, he wasn't mean to me...he actually did something so nice that I got teary eyed, and then once those tears came all the stress of the last couple of weeks came crashing in and walla...blubbering idiot who had to run to the bathroom because she hates people seeing her cry.

Speaking of stress - here's a quick update. I hate the well - really, really hate it. The water is coming out a light gray (sometimes a dark gray depending), and it's smelling sulfuric again. It won't even help to call the filter people because the well is taking out all its pent up anger on me and on my house. I have put in for a home equity loan...a foreign option to me. I am praying and praying and praying that I get it because I need to connect to the county line faster than I can save up for it. So please, if you're the praying type, pray along with me.

That's that, I don't want to talk anymore about the well. So the whole point of this post was to talk about two things. The first - PTO days where you don't really do anything are great! I have been in such a good mood today, my mind just seems clearer and I feel overall - happier.

This morning, Pam was at my desk and we were talking when Bob walked by. Pam told him he looked tired and he was saying how it was his kids' fault. Then Pam said something about him always being grumpy (she really has a way of making people feel good) and he said that other people make him grumpy. So Pam said that other people don't make him grumpy, he makes himself grumpy. I jumped in and said that it's all about choices, attitude is everything. So Bob slightly brightened and said, "Attitude really is everything." I don't know if that was sarcastic or not, but then he went on, "Thanks guys, I'm glad I came over here, you've put me in a good mood."

I smiled and said, "No, you put yourself in a good mood." It was just one of those "after school special" moments that makes me laugh. So he laughed and left and then I was still laughing and told Pam that it didn't seem right that she could push the blame off to him for making him grouchy and then try to take the credit for putting him in a good mood. But that leads us to Point 2: Attitude is Everything.

So - no matter what happens with this whole well issue - I am choosing now that I am going to be happy. People can't decide how I am going to feel, only I can decide how I react to the things they say and do (...and along with 'people' we are throwing in derelict wells). I am going to end 2010 as optimistic and positive as I began it!

It's always about YOU isn't it?*

“Our goals should stretch us bit by bit. So often when we think we have encountered a ceiling, it is really a psychological or experiential barrier that we have built ourselves. We built it and we can remove it. . . We must not expect personal improvement without pain or some ‘remodeling’” ( Neal A. Maxwell. Deposition of a Disciple [1976], 33–34).

It's time to start thinking about goals for 2011 and a rhyming theme. Let's recap:

• Get a date in '08 (Said "oh-8")
• 'Bout time in '09 (oh-9)
• Do it again in 2010 (twenty-ten)

Eleven....heaven, leaven.

There's:

• "Excellin' in '11" (said to force the rhyme).
• "Wellin in '11" (kind of like slumming it OR getting rid of the well - obviously my feelings on well have taken a turn for the utmost worst)

Um...maybe it's time to give up the rhymed themes. ...anyone with any brilliant ideas on this one???

Possible Goals:

1. G had the goal of reading 50 books this year (2010) and she is almost there! I was thinking about giving myself a similar challenge and then I looked at the books on my 'to read' list...Atlas Shrugged, How the Allies Won the War, Jesus the Christ, Catch 22, Moby Dick, Paradise Lost...these books are not your average book. So as much as I want to be like G - I think I'll have to scale it down to 25-30 books for 2011.
2. I want to get rid of the well - enough said.
3. Run a half marathon.

I am still working on some more, I will have the finalized list to you by the end of the month. In the mean time I am open to suggestions!! Any goal ideas or rhyming efforts are much appreciated!

This is like a moment from a horror movie.*

My well and I have a love/hate relationship. There are perks to having a well, no water bill being basically the only one that comes to mind. Some of you remember back in July my well debacle. You may also know how much it costs to connect to the county line (over $6,000 once all is said and done). Luckily, in July we were able to fix the problem by calling two different companies, one for the well itself and one for the filtration system. The total came to about $300 or so - BIG savings there. Since then, life had returned to normal, the love had been restored between the well and me.

Then came the Saturday after Thanksgiving. The water began to come out of the faucets nice and murky. So I called up Dad and we (and here I mean HE) changed the filter. We ran the water a bit from almost every faucet to help clear out the water. We thought life was to go on from this point, but then the water started to act funny...just like July. At first it seemed to just hate Elaina and when I would come around it pretended that nothing was wrong. (We call this the dancing frog syndrome). I believed Elaina of course, I was just hoping I could somehow fix the problem on my own.

Turns out there is something called a "bleeder" button on the filtration system. The fact that it is called a 'bleeder' button joined with the fact that when you push it water shoots out of it...makes me gag uncontrollably. I was hoping that would fix the problem...but, of course, that would be too easy. So the water still choose when it would come out and then it got all murky on me again. So I called the only people I know that might be able to help with this. The Well People as I call them.

They were able to come out this morning, they are here as I type and I have to admit I feel like a bumbling idiot. One of the guys asked me if there was a clog in the filter...My first thought was that if I knew that there was a clog in the filter I wouldn't have called them, I would have gotten rid of the clog. But how does one know if there is a clog in the filter? I know nothing about wells! So I stood there for a moment, probably with the deer in headlights look and finally said, "I'm not sure," smile, "my dad changed the filter." Yes...blame Dad...he's not here to defend himself. Then the other guy came back and asked if I could turn off the breaker to the well...what the?? I didn't even realize that my well had a breaker, but you know what? It makes sense. Seeing my delay he said, "in the breaker box" and that gave me time to collect myself, I said, "Yeah, sure, I think." Idiot sighting number 2. I went back to the breaker box and found one for the pump and water and I figure that did the trick because they haven't come back to say I'm a moron.

I hate having people here, I never know what I am supposed to do. It's flipping 28 degrees outside and these people are here trying to help me and I feel like I'm being ungrateful sitting in front of my space heater, blogging while they are out there losing appendages. It doesn't help that the one I interact with most has a beard and a hat...so no matter what he actually looks like I find him attractive. There needs to be a term for this...hat goggles? Beard goggles? beahat goggles...beahat goggles it is. I suffer from chronic beahat goggles.

I'm just praying that they can "fix" the well. I don't want them to come back to the door and say, "Yeah, there's nothing wrong with your well you idiot...but thanks for the laugh this morning, our facial muscles needed the workout."

She's not going to squeeze my shirt like that, is she?*

I gave a talk in Stake Conference Saturday night, except that it wasn't my stake. I don't know which makes me more nervous - speaking in front of a crowd I know or speaking in front of one where I don't know as many people. I think both crowds have the same affect on me.

To me - public speaking is like taking the stairs at work. I have taken the stairs everyday for three years but it never gets any easier. I think that no matter how much I speak in public, it will never get easier. I mean - I used to be a trainer and at least once a week I would stand up in front of 15-25 people...I just had to say the same thing every week but I was always nervous.

I practiced my talk so much that I had it memorized in case something happened to my hard copy on the way to the meeting house. It came in handy when I kept losing my place. I would look down, have no clue where I was on the paper and just look back up and keep going. It was nothing short of a miracle.

I shared a story in my talk about my BYU-Idaho days - it not only went with my topic but I feel it was responsible for me standing up there speaking. President Bednar used to have little "Family Home Evenings" with wards from campus, it was a little Q&A and people would ask all sorts of questions. I remember once, President Bednar (a.k.a. Uncle Dave) said that if you are looking for an answer from the Lord you need to show him that you are ready. Raise your hand in class, volunteer to say the prayer, accept callings and assignments that come your way - basically, participate. So a few months ago I was ready for an answer and remembered President Bednar saying this - I thought, "Okay, I'm ready for some answers, I'm going to participate." I was basically going to become a 'yes' girl where as before I had been a "I don't know, maybe" girl. Three days after I made that decision I was asked to teach FHE in my ward, the day after that I got a phone call from one of the Sunday School teachers asking me to sub for his class. ...I really don't like being up in front of people, and both of these "opportunities" required an extended amount of time in front of people. But I said 'yes' to both.

My topic Saturday night was on Temples and this story worked well with my talk because I had already had a trip to the temple planned for the Saturday before having to teach these two lessons. I told of my experience there while preparing for my lessons. The peace and comfort and the understanding that I was blessed with so that I could teach these lessons. For Sunday School, I had read the scriptures for the lesson at least four times and felt lost...kind of like when you read Shakespeare without someone there to guide you through it. You read the words but then you are like, "Wait, what just happened there?" While I was in the temple I decided to read the scriptures again and suddenly I understood them, it was so easy that I wondered at how I hadn't understood them before.

I found that I suddenly knew exactly what to teach and I was given comfort where before I had been pretty much a nervous wreck (cause seriously, if you know me, you know I don't like being in front of people).

I think my talk went well on Saturday - people came up to me and told me that they really enjoyed it and I'm hoping they don't just do that to be nice. Cause if I didn't enjoy a talk I wouldn't bother. One woman came up to me and told me that it was exactly what she needed to hear and that made me happy because I had been praying all day for that, to say the things that people needed to hear.

In addition to teaching those two lessons I was also asked to give the closing prayer at the meeting in the Priesthood Room on our Stake Temple day and of course, asked to speak in the Richmond Stake Conference...But hey, I got the answer I had been ready for.

I coulda been a contender.*

Mafia: a murder mystery game played by a group of 6 or more people. Usually roles are decided by drawing a specified card (i.e. the Ace means you are a detective and the Jack means you are a mafia, regular card means civilian). The bigger the group, the more detectives and mafia you have. There is a narrator who conducts the game, instructing everyone in the group to close their eyes, then having the mafia awake to kill someone. Once that is done and the mafia's eyes are closed the narrator has the detective(s) awake and point to someone they think is the mafia, if the detective is right, the narrator nods their head. Then, everyone is "woken up", the narrator announces who is dead and the "townspeople" try to figure out who dunnit, the detective tries to steer them in the right direction without revealing that they are the detective (cause the mafia will kill the detective if they know).

Last night, instead of playing Frisbee, we got together to play games. Mafia has recently become a group favorite. So last night we began to play but the group was pretty small and we never made it past one round. Some people thought we should have two mafia, but others felt that if we had two the game would end too quickly (like it wasn't already ending quickly...) So we decided to give it a shot. We also added on one or two more players. So the game did get batter.

The stories that the narrators came up with were great! Once we were in a crack house, once on a cruise, when I was narrator we were at Dairy Queen (I don't remember how that came up, I think Drew said he wanted ice-cream) and the dastardly Dairy Queen employees were taking out the customers. Poor Kathryn, she had a rough night. On the cruise she found a dead body and pretty much in all others she died. She was chopped into pieces on our train ride (I am pretty sure we were going to Hogwarts but no one confirmed or denied that), she got pushed through the railing of the Eiffel Tower (therefore she was in pieces). I always swore to avenge her, and usually we found the mafia pretty quickly (not because of my skills, mostly because of other people's). I was mafia once and my partner in crime was Nick. Nick's first action as mafia was to order a hit on my sister! I looked at him and shook my head 'no' but he nodded and since he is Italian and really could be part of the mafia I conceded and instructed the narrator to kill my sister...

Brittany was the detective and she was adamant that Nick was the mafia. There were only a few of us playing at this point and all of them raised their hands to vote Nick as the mafia, so I quickly raised my hand too...Orin's reluctance to vote for Brittany in the round before was how I figured out that he was a mafia too, I couldn't give myself away like that. Brittany and Nick went back and forth for a while discussing arguing the matter. Brittany admitted to the group that she was the detective and gave a very detailed account of how she questioned the narrator about Nick's guilt and it had been confirmed. The evidence was damning. I couldn't save Nick, the best I could do was go on and try to win the game for the mafia. In the heat of the moment, when Nick realized it was a lost cause, he said, "If I'm the mafia then Jessica is the other one!" and pointed at me.

...you dirty rat.

Everyone was thrown off by it, what kind of mafia turns on the other person like that?! He's a canary. Some people were like, "Where did that come from?" and Nick stood by his accusation that I was the other mafia and he was selling me out because I was so quick to raise my hand against him. Everyone voted Nick off and we all closed our eyes. I knew I was going down, no matter who I killed it was over, I had one chance. When Orin told the mafia to open their eyes I pointed at the people on either side of me. It's against the rules to kill two people at once, but this was my last chance - the game had been ruined anyway might as well make it interesting. Orin seemed to agree. I closed my eyes, Brittany opened hers and likely pointed at me to verify that I was the other mafia. When we all opened our eyes Orin told the story of how both Michelle and Cam were taken down, there was an uproar from the crowd that two people had been killed, I said I knew I was going out and I was going to go out big...I ADMITTED that I was the killer. And then the most amazing thing happened...two of the players still didn't think that I was the other mafia...that would have been genius for Nick to point at a civilian and say that they were the other mafia as his dying words...but unfortunately Nick's accusation was a crime of passion not an intricate plot to win the game. I almost got away with it too...but it reminded them that I had confessed to being the killer. Kathryn was shocked.

I killed my sister for that guy and he gave me up in a heartbeat...

Then in a different round when I was just a civilian, we were trying to figure out who the mafia were. For a moment I wondered if it was Kathryn, she had that kind of smile when I asked and I thought how horrible it would be to have to accuse my sister and how much worse if I was wrong. Nick was trying to get me to vote for Brittany, but I didn't want to vote with him and then him end up being Mafia...I was still bitter. When he realized he couldn't get me to vote with him and that people might vote him off, he turned the mafia against me. The very person he was just accusing helped him to vote me off. He said that he didn't think I was mafia, but he could tell I wouldn't vote with him and he had to do what he had to do to stay alive...when the mafia struck again - they killed him. So much for staying alive.

What am I supposed to do with you now?!*

My mind has been flat lining after work this week, and pretty much since some point last week. So I'm sorry I've been MIA. Nothing too exciting has been happening, as you saw in the last post I put up my Christmas stuff on Sunday. I love Christmas.

We had a basketball game on Tuesday, we are in the playoffs. Oh - and Gretel, we play at several different locations. Last week was Mechanicsville Church of Christ. This coming week is the West End Home for Girls and Boys on Broad street (7pm - Tuesday night...). There - G gets her own little shout out.

It was a pretty fun game, someone on the other team stole my rebound from me...seriously, it was in my hands and he knocked it out. A girl on his team picked it up and hesitated so I went for it and held on for dear life. They called a jump ball and we got possession. I wouldn't say that I was angry, but I would say my "kick it up" button got pushed. I don't like when people take something that I believe is mine, and that rebound had been mine.

I guess I didn't realize how differently I was playing compared to earlier games in the season cause at one point a girl on my team, Megan, said, "Where did this aggression come from?" and I smiled and nodded and was like, "Yeah, I like it." I thought she was talking about the other team, and when the other team is more aggressive, I am more aggressive. Then she said something about the rest of the session and I realized she was talking about my aggression.

At one point I went for another rebound. There was a person from my team and a person from the other team and I ran up to take it before it went straight to the guy from the other team. I'm not exactly sure what happened, but I got that ball, and then there were arms around me and a leg hitting my butt and I was on the ground with some dude on top of me. Normally I jump right up after this, but I felt like I gave myself some time to get up - I think I was a little in shock. My left arm hurt, I guess because of the way "we" landed on it. I felt like I was going to have a heart attack, not cause my heart hurt but because my arm felt the way I imagine it hurts when you are about to have a heart attack. I keep waiting for a bruise to show up so I can take a picture and show off - but this one refuses to surface, though it still hurts like there is a huge bruise there.

Oh - so here's my complaint for the post. So Katie usually plays on my team for church ball. Recently it was announced that Isaac would be released from his calling at church - with that Stephanie and Isaac will move their records to Bon Air...and with them?! Katie and Kristen (sp?)! So I made the mistake of asking halfway through the game what Katie was going to do if Stephanie moved her records, cause I have always known that Katie would move them to Bon Air if Stephanie did, but I thought maybe we'd have some time. Get the season started so it would be too late to switch...Katie wasn't going to tell me until after the game but since I asked she had to be honest, they were moving their records, these girls aren't going to be on my team!?

Who am I supposed to play with now?! So - Richmonders...any of you looking for a basketball team in January? I'd love to have you!

In other sports news - we are still playing Frisbee...we missed the memo about it being freakin' cold! Last night it was cold and there were slick spots on the ground. I hit a puddle and slid and somehow thought I came through unscathed, until after the game when Kathryn pointed out that the back of my pants and shirt were muddy. I guess I was that cold that I didn't feel a thing. I took gloves yesterday, and that made my fingers happy...cause when your hands are cold and you try to catch a Frisbee you feel like maybe those little digits might fall right off.