Hotel Washburn

Today I blog to you live from the state's premier 5 star resort in Monticello Utah. Situated below the picturesque "horse mountain," Hotel Washburn can boast the highest rate of return visitors in all of Utah. And once you know all the amazing ammenities of this establishment it is not the least surprising that guests return as often as schedules allow. In fact there is hardly a weekend that goes by that all the rooms are not completely booked! Some of the aforementioned ammenities include the following:

*A rousing wake-up call as early as 12:00 noon.

*Made to order comfort-food for every meal. I suggest the waffles.

*Pristine mountain air.

*The aroma of a real wood-burning stove.

*A museum exhibit entitled, "Fashion Through The Decades-A Look Back At What The Washburn Girls Wore." (A must see and terribly moving.)

*An entire cupboard devoted entirely to sweet treats, and if you time your visit right-around Christmas or Father's day-those sweets will undoubtely contain See's Chocolates.

*An assortment of activities ranging from reading to napping to learning to cook. And I dare you to deny the activities director, one Spenser Simpson, when he graciously invites you to a card game or two.

In fact things have been going so well here at Hotel Washburn, that they have recently had to expand by "securing" up to three additional rooms at the adjacent Hotel Chapman and four additional rooms at Hotel Simpson located only 15 minutes south in Blanding Utah.

I can think of no better way for this blogger to ring in the new year than a stay here and I highly recommend a visit here to everyone-that is if you can get a reservation.

Happy 2008

Old

Having just turned 27 I have hit what some might call a "quarter-life crisis." This numeral, which seems innocuous, is in reality much too big a number and too many steps past 23 for me to feel entirely comfortable with it. Each year starting around the end of October I have started what I call the "aging-reconciliation-process." The process basically involves me telling people that "I am ____ years old." With the blank being filled in each year with my approaching age rather than my actual age. I don't know if I started this process each year because I was so excited to be another year older, or if it was because I really needed those extra couple of months to mentally adjust to the change.

However, 2007 has proved to be the end of the "aging-reconciliation-process." I didn't even want to say my actual age let alone the new/bigger number that was coming. I have been, GULP, 27 for a couple of weeks now and I am just barely able to say it. During my struggle leading up to my birthday I did, as I always do, talk about it with my friends and family. So many people have made "cute" comments about my feelings on aging and I wanted to share a few with you.

54 year old woman: "Please you are so young, you have all the time in the world."
*Note: Don't mom's always have to say that kind of stuff whether they mean it or not?

23 year old woman: "Well, how old are you going to be?" (I respond) "Oh." (making a face that looks like she just swallowed something undesireable) "I thought turning 23 was hard."
*Note: I hope that she has crows feet and gray hair at 27

19 year old girl: "I think its silly when people struggle with aging, I have never had a problem getting older."
*Note: That's because ALL children look forward to getting older!

21 year old guy: "Well I guess you can start dating guys in their mid-thirites now."

30 year old guy: "Don't worry, no one really expects much else from you."
*Note: Oh really, you, of all people, are going to judge my life. Ironic.

27 year old woman: "You should probably just get a cat or 2 or 500 and call it good."
*Note: Dawn-remember to discuss self-hatered with therapist.

You were probably thinking at the begining of this post that there would be some back story, the meat of my struggle,the touching moment where I had a personal epiphany and realized that 27 is not old, or I am okay with being 27, or some other load of crap, finished off with a concise morale of the story. Sorry to disappoint you, but that is not the case, I am still struggling with being 27 years old, I just don't like it. However, I am hoping to get used to it soon so that I can enjoy a few months free of age-related struggle before I get to 28 (heaven/therapy help me.)

Sugar-tarian

Before thanksgiving I was undecided about whether or not I would be eating turkey with my dinner. As the food began circling the table the decision was suddenly upon me, meat or no meat. I took a little turkey and ate a bite or two, but alas the nausea soon followed. So my thanksgiving was mostly turkey free.

In the wake of my slight dissapointment at not eating turkey on turkey day I consoled myself by thinking about all the yummy holiday treats that are sure to abound during the next few weeks. First to mind; Christmas Creme Cookies....mmmmm. Then I thought about all the calories involved in all those treats, calories which I know I don't need. First to mind; Christmas Creme Cookies.....oh(sad face).

That is the moment I wondered why I couldn't feel about sugar the way I feel about meat. I decided to try to think about all the grossness of sugar. After sitting with a pen and paper for over 20 minutes, (I've decided to be open and honest about my intense need to make lists for everything) I had no bullet points under the heading, "Things That Are Gross About Sugar."

So my desire to be a sugar-tarian was short lived due to the lack of evidence in support of it. Oh well, but at least I will get to eat those Christmas Creme Cookies....mmmm. Maybe I'll try to keep it to a minimum, then again.....

Things I'm Glad I Tried-Even Though I Was Petrified

I am afraid of a lot of things; an international ice-cream shortage, only having brown shoes to wear with a black outift, wearing really high heels, spiders, someone hiding behind the shower curtain waiting to kill me, and cleaning the toilet...just to a name a few of the ones I am working on in therapy. Then I thought about some of the things I was afraid to do that I did anyway....

Things I'm Glad I Tried:

1. Starting My Own Business!
2. A second kiss-the first one was so terrible I nearly gave up on it for life!
3. Escargo-even though I almost threw up.
4. Airplane Food-even though I did throw up.
5. Entering the MTC---and leaving the MTC
6. Blind Dates-I mean COME ON!

I am wiser, more mature, more understanding of myself and the world around me, and certainly stronger for having done these things. Of course there's still long list of things I am scared to do....(anyone who wants to clean my toilet is welcome to.)

They do what?

I am finding that if I write down the funny things right away I don't forgot so easily.

In preschool this week we have been talking about Thanksgiving, Thankful attitudes, and of course, Turkeys. This morning as she dropped off her son one mom said, "we talked about turkeys yesterday so he is all ready to talk about them today." Then to her son, "Remember TURKEYS not chickens." (this is apparently a very confusing concept.)

So after his mom left this sweet little boy shared what he now knew about turkeys with me. I am wondering which family member was the source of his information. Please to enjoy.

Little Boy: "They slice their body (knife cutting across belly motion) and they cut their body off (cutting off hands motion)."

Miss Dawn: I'm sure my eyes were wide, "Oh really?"

Little Boy: "Yeah. And its cool!"

I will at this point reference a previous blog of mine entitled "Vegetarian?" maybe I will retitle it to "Vegetarian!"

One Of Life's Disappointments

I usually hope that kids I teach don't have to feel the little disappointments of life this early, but alas, it is inevitible.

(to get the full efect read matthew's part in the voice of whatever 3 year old you know that has those little speech impediments that are so endearing.)

Miss Dawn: "Hey Matthew."

Matthew: "I'm Superman!"

Miss Dawn: "Oh yeah, Hey Superman. How are you today?"

Superman: "Good."

Miss Dawn: "Did you fly anywhere last night?"

Superman: "My dog is name peanut."

Miss Dawn: "Cool." (I am understandably a little confused at this point.)

Superman looks up at me through his eyelashes and I'm quite confident I saw the glimmer of a tear forming, and now I am afraid that he is going to tell me about Peanut dieing, so I hug him a little closer and wait for him to continue.

Superman: "But she can't fly."

At this point dear little superman runs off, or I should say pretends to fly off, to play with his friends. I laughed and laughed until a tear came to my eye.

And then I wondered: Did he test out a flying-super-dog theory on the family pet?

Food for Thought

This week my preschool had a fieldtrip to Alberstons to learn all about healthy eating and more importantly where the cookies are made. It was a really fun fieldtrip and the kids were awed by all the neat things they saw-live lobster included. However, it was more than a little ironic to me that they started off in the bread section and told the kids all about good bread-brown and bad bread-white, then we promptly headed into the in store bakery where we saw cookies baking and then they gave all the kids a cookie. I think the real lesson learned was, bread=bad and cookie=good.

There were two comments from these adorable children I wanted to share.

Comment #1
Little Girl: "Miss Dawn, look! There is McDonalds!"

Miss Dawn: "Yeah-there it is."

Little Girl: "We don't eat there cause mom says it stinks."

Comment #2
A Different Little Girl: "My brother is allergic to ice-cream."

Miss Dawn: (curious as to her level of understanding) "Hey, what does allergic mean?"

Little Girl: "It means when you smell something you are allergic to you DIE!"

Miss Dawn: "Oh, thanks for explaining."

Authors note: Maybe it would be good if I were "allergic" by this definition to ice-cream.