Does your room ever look like this...

after a crazy morning of trying to get dressed only to feel like nothing is quite right? If I don't make an attempt the night before to pick something out there are at least 1 to 43273948901 random outfits thrown on my bed when I walk out the door.

Good times with the closet!

Making Strides

Today we skipped out on church and went to CT for the Making Strides walk. Jan is a survivor and a pacesetter, meaning she raises more than $2,000 each year for Breast Cancer. She's pretty awesome which you can see in the video below.

The day was gorgeous! Last year it was incredibly windy and not as much fun, but today's weather was beautiful.
Dan pushing NP's stroller, thug Kate representin' with her pink bandana.
Jan leading the pack
And I was dying over the gorgeous colored leaves set against the bright blue sky. I love me some fall colors!
I couldn't get enough!

So that's what we were up to today. Good times with the fam-bamily!

Oh Jan

My MILy was on the local news yesterday as a hometown hero. She really is pretty awesome for so many reasons (two of which is birthing my husband and raising him to be the good man he is). You'll see how awesome she is in the clip below!

Sweet rhino huh?

This Sunday Dan and I are going out to CT to support Jan in the Breast Cancer Awareness walk that's mentioned in the clip. Last year Kate decorated NP's stroller with some awesome save the tata's signs. It should be good times, and hopefully not as windy as last year!

Favorite things...

Laying in bed, snuggled under a thick comforter, reading a super grande new book, just being with the hubs.

It's a favorite thing of mine : )

I am a therapist

Back in the day when Rachel and I were traveling through France and Italy, our only thoughts were "where the crap is our hostel?" and "let's cram in as much awesome-ness as possible in a one week period, sweet!"

I am a therapist. I love it. I love getting a new case and devouring the information. Gleaning as much as I can about my new client/s. I love writing a pre-assessment (even though I complain) before I meet the client. Analyzing the situation, searching out what the underlying issues and themes are, finding the causes for behavior, coming up with ideas, planning out how I can use the skills and techniques I've learned to help improve someone's life who is just a little stuck right now. Figuring out how I can facilitate their learning more about themselves and having an increased understanding of who they are and what they need in life and how to go about getting that.

I love it.

I love writing up post session, thinking through what I said, critiquing myself. Finding the one gem sentence, the one phrase that let me in a little more which gives me something to work with in the next session. Planning the next session, hoping, questioning, thinking... Reviewing my treatment so far. Figuring out what has and hasn't worked. Going back to the drawing board. Consulting more experienced people, consulting my co-therapists... figuring out what I can do.

I love it.

I love the prep, I love the after, I love the thinking through, I love the stories people have, I love the writing. I get complimented on it. I'm decent at the writing and the think through.

But I struggle.

When I am in a session, I freeze. Someone says something and I have no idea how to respond to it. They ask me a question, I have no idea what the answer is. I ask them a question and they don't understand. I try and come up with examples on the fly and they fall flat. I try and stop a couple from screaming at each other, I try and make a family feel motivated to change, I try and make people feel understood, I try and find the best in the crappy individuals, I try, but sometimes...

I suck.

In the middle of a session, I frequently have nothing. No tricks up my sleeves, no go to answers, nada. I'm all alone.

But then sometimes, like yesterday, I pray my freakin' heart out because I don't know what to do anymore. I've consulted everyone I can, I've thought it through, I have things written on paper and I still feel like it won't matter. It won't be enough. I know my session will fall flat and the family will continue to go no where. So I pray to Heavenly Father, that He'll help me. He'll inspire me. He'll give me the words I need, the understanding I need to help His children.

And He helps.

And I have that one gem of a session that picks me up for at least a little while and makes me feel like maybe I can make a difference. At least every once in a while.

And that's what people need right? Someone who can make a difference every once in a while and nudge us towards the right path?

At least that's what I tell myself to feel better. : )

oh an apple picking we will go...

Today Dan and I were going to have an adventure. We were going to take a zip car out of the city, get some fresh air and pick us some apples. Last year during Columbus day we were doing this and I had actually really wanted to pick me some apples, but I did end up satisfied with the day at the end.

However! Of course our apple picking adventure would not be easy. It was to be thwarted by the fact that everyone and their mom and their aunt jemima too had gone on Saturday and cleaned out the apple orchards! So there were sadly no apples left to pick, although there were plenty of apples to buy as well as pumpkins, and good food.

First though we had to take the hay ride, accompanied by some kettle corn. The good stuff.

yum yum kettle corn, we couldn't stop stuffing our faces.
See what I mean?
Then Dan gave me some attitude, as per usual.
The orchards in which we could not frolic.
The scenic view.
Now lets get onto the food portion of the day. First up a hot dog accompanied by some delish apple cider in these super cute sippy cups. We also may or may not have purchased a gallon of the stuff to take home...
I just liked this wagon...it was very fall-y
Now the good stuff. Home made apple dumpling with ice cream, pumpkin pie with ice cream. and apple doughnuts.... don't get snotty, you would have tried them all too!
Oh the doughnut. Warning, never eat an apple doughnut cold, it is seriously lacking in deliciousness.
Then we went about our day visiting Dan's familia in CT, as well as Costco, and Shopco. I looooove me to grocery and bulk shopping : )

Post Edit: I'd just like to apologize to my english nerd friends (Dan and Lauren) for the abundant mistakes in this post previous to my edits. I am sure you can both probably still find some, but I feel better for a least not leaving apple spelled pple and putting warNing in the place of warMing--because that didn't make any sense....

oh USPS

Dear Post Office,

NORMALLY, I try really hard to be patient and nice at the post office. Especially here in NYC because I'm sure you get all sorts of lunatics buggin' ya. I wait quietly in line, I don't bang on your window, I know what I want before I get there, and I always have my stuff packaged and ready to go. But today? Today I was grumpy because:

1. you said you tried to deliver my package at 9:30 am on Wed. morning. I was home all day Wed. and I took a shower the night before so I definitely would have heard you at any point had you actually rung my bell. And yeah I'm sure you didn't want to do a 5th floor walk up, but I would have come down had you rung. Alas you did not ring, and thus you lied about "attempting" to deliver my package. And we all know where liars go... hell-o! (old joke)

2. A man was nicely helping people, slowly, but helping. However, when I was to be next, he disappeared. Where did he go? I had not one clue. No explanation given. Just nobody at the counter. The only counter where one can pick up her package. The line grew and grew and nobody could get an explanation. This went on for at least 15 minutes.

3. The woman who finally came took her sweet little time. She was right, I kinda did fling my notice and ID into her little tray thing, but it wasn't like I slammed against the glass wall and screamed my head off at her. Allow me this one thing to exert my frustration. Did it hurt you? No. Did I speak to you and call you bad names? No. I am sure you receive much worse treatment all day long, so get over it honey.

4. You do not need to talk to me like that! I said not one word to you and yet you made snappy comments to me and placed my package as far away from me as possible. You ma'am chose this line of work and if you've ever been to a post office yourself prior to starting you career path, you would know how frustrating it can be on the customer end of things.

So today I was a little grumpy. And yeah I kinda did fling my notice and ID into the tray but I wasn't mean! I kept it all inside since all you hear about is how postal workers have it so hard.

Try fixing families who everyone thinks are broken and try listening to the horrible things people who love each other do to each other all day long and still be nice to them. Go on Miss Snippy Postal worker. I dare ya!

Thrown down by yours truly,

Maddie Thomson

Sweet boy o' mine

The other week I came home to this. My boo as usual had done the laundry (I'm not strong enough to haul it up and down our 5 flights and around the corner). My job is to put things away. When I saw a pile of sheets on the bed, I assumed I was putting them back on the bed. However....

I pulled back the covers and what did I find?! a completely made bed with fresh sheets! : )

Isn't he the best thing since sliced bread?

Favorite Conference Talk

Elder David A. Bednar's talk at the Saturday morning session of Conference was amazing. I always really enjoy his talks and this one was great. He gave an outline of how we can incorporate Chris-like attributes into our lives. The thing that stood out the most to both Dan and I was his counsel to tell family that you love them as often as possible. Being the young newlyweds we are, this isn't something in particular we need to focus on with each other, but with extended family members we could definitely say it more often. And even though we say it pretty frequently now, I think it's important to get in the habit of saying those things and being charitable towards each other. After his talk I was left with a real sense that I could do what he counseled, that what he had outlined and talked about was definitely something attainable.

Anyways, that was my favorite talk. What was yours? : )

good times

Saturday night, Dan, Julie and I went to Shake Shack and while Dan was at Priesthood, Julie and I went and saw Fame (not all that great at all). Afterwards, Julie came back to our place and we had a sleepover. Of course any good sleepover includes guitar hero and putting on tattoos. It was good times! Then in the morning we made a wonderful breakfast together. After which we of course watched Conference.

Dan rocking out
The tramp stamps, we like to keep it classy
The J-Meezy and I rockin' out
Then tonight after Conference, I may or may not have made one of the most delicious meals ever (as declared by Mr. Dan Thomson and agreed upon by me)! Grilled Ribeye Steak with Onion Blue Cheese Sauce. Amazing! So creamy and decadent. And of course accompanied by Katie's Crescent rolls, which didn't turn out quite right this time, but they were perfect for dipping in the sauce : )
It disappeared pretty fast : )

So those are all of the fun non-spiritual things we did this weekend. Look out tomorrow for our favorite conference talks, there were definitely some great ones!

Conference weekend.

One of my favorite non-spiritual parts of conference weekend is being able to sleep in and then make breakfast with my boo. This morning we treated ourselves to cinnamon french toast and bacon. Basically it was yummy.

He feel so manly using his "grill"
Yeah definitely hadn't gotten ready for the day yet.... and actually it's almost 3pm and I still haven't gotten ready for the day (another nice part about general conference weekend : )

Tonight I get to do my other favorite non-spiritual activity, girls night while my man is at the priesthood session. Miss Julie and Miss Zaneta and I are going to Shake Shack and then watching the movie Fame! : ) I am excited.

this guy...

melts my butter

I just think this picture is funny cause Dan has a big mouth, like a shark! rawr!

Know why I like this guy? He took me to a yummy dinner at a nice restaurant that recently opened near us, and afterwards as we walked past flowers outside of a grocery store, he suggested we get some. Isn't he the tops? I got Lilly's, they smell like our wedding : ) it makes my heart happy.

Just a little something...

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I'm totally famous in a really not famous kind of way.

: )