Poll Results

Once again the poll results are in...

The question was "What is your dream vacation?'

The choices and answers were...
Italy-7 votes
Las Vegas-1 vote
Africa-2 votes
France-1 vote
Washington DC-1 vote
New York-ZERO votes
Brazil-1 vote

Hmmm...interesting!  Now, anyone that knows me at all would know that Italy was my vote!  The other 6 votes for Italy are all kiss-ups and I don't know who you are...but RIGHT ON!!!  The one Vegas vote obviously has some cash to blow at the Casino's or is the biggest Osmond fan around!  Africa is a great choice...I would love to go to Africa, especially after working with so many families from there recently.  The vote for France...hmmm...ummm...no disrespect here...but the French and the Italians don't really get along...not to mention the whole leave America hanging once in a while.  I think the sights and history would be great.  I'm not lumping anyone into a category here...France just isn't MY first choice.  Washington DC WOULD BE WONDERFUL!  I have only been there once and can say honestly that it was one of my top 3 vacations EVER!!!  I LOVE history and visited there during Veterans day....so incredibly moving and such a beautiful city.  I was surprised that New York didn't get any votes.  It seems like every week I hear someone saying they want to go to NY.  In fact Casey wants to head there for her b-day...apparently Casey doesn't read this blog and/or vote on the polls...HMMMM!  Now the Brazil vote I agree with also...but maybe only for the upcoming World Cup in a few years.  Soccer in Brazil would blow my mind!!!

Honestly, all of these options were choices of mine however nothing tops my list like Italy.  I have always been fascinated with everything Italian.  My goal is to be there before 2015.  I even have a piggie bank that I named Italy so I could start saving.  I also have a goal of knowing the language before I go.  I will not go to Italy unless I can speak Italian WELL!!!  Wish me luck on my goal of over 30 years.

Thanks to everyone who voted and participates in my blog.  It's fun to get feedback when you are willing to give it.  Please remember that all poll voting is anonymous and you can leave comments anonymously as well.

Much love!!!
Chels

Poll Results

Alright!  The poll results are in...and just for any of you that are wondering...all votes are anonymous.

The question was "What have you dreamt about?"

The options were: unicorns, piles of money, world peace and super powers.

I will tell you right now that my vote was unicorns AND super powers.  I'll explain later.

The results from the poll were

unicorns 3 votes

piles of money 2 votes

world peace 6 votes

super powers 9 votes

I hope that people were honest in voting and it's great that piles of money aren't the only thing people are dreaming about.  I love that super powers took the cake...I think it shows that people don't take themselves too seriously or that maybe someone is out there working on the science to create my favorite super powers!  World peace would be incredible and once again I hope we are all working on a way to create this daily.  The unicorn votes...well, please explain yourself if you were not watching the movie Legend recently.

As I mentioned my vote was unicorns AND super powers.  My dream about these happened together.  I actually had just watched Ron Burgundy-Anchorman.  There is a scene in the movie where unicorns are present...please see movie if you are over 17.  The super powers bit came from a conversation with my sister, Stacey and her constant teasing me about having gypsy powers.  Gypsy powers do include but are not limited to...seeing the future, contacting the deceased and an insatiable hunger for gummy bears.  The gummy bear part may be true...but the other two are not, please do not contact me for assistance or call the local authorities to have me committed. 

So, it's time for a new poll.  Please vote.  It'll give me something to talk about and if you have suggestions...please leave them here...you can comment anonymously if you want.

Much love!

Hi DAD

Hi Dad!!!  Happy Father's Day!  I'm assuming that you'll read this and I write this post just to you.

I always think about my most favorite memories of, with or about people I love.  The only problem with you is that your list is getting so big it's taking over my brain.  There are so many memories I have with you.  I must hold onto them strongly because I believe and know that you are one of the most influential and loved individuals in my life.  You have known me from the beginning, been there from the beginning and our eyes seem to see the same things in life.  I often find myself saying something or repeating some action that mimics you.  I sometimes look out at the world and find myself thinking...I bet that's what dad thinks too.

I love that I have always felt a connection to you.  Even without words, our love seems to pass as daughter and father freely...through distance and time.  I am never worried that you don't know how much I love you because in the moments I might fear that, I sit quietly and say I love you and I know you get that.

You continue to give me so much in life and share so much with me.  I am and have ALWAYS been honored to be your daughter.

Here are some of my memories with you...randomly...
playing cards on the weekends, building sandcastles in Hawaii, you dressing up as a Benihanna chef and cooking for RJ and I on a dance night, grocery shopping when I lived with you in high school, bread and butter pickles and A1 steak sauce, the first set of gold clubs you bought me that were like a foot tall, the day you told me you signed me up for soccer (I was terrified...but it became my love), guitar music late at night to play me to sleep...mostly Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, the Animals...BMW's, Las Vegas Easter trips and eating at William B's, body surfing and boogie boarding in Hawaii, the Ockey mobile, Seaworld, our road trip to Canada and Glacier, St. George, Fishlake, your brown farm boots, pick pick strum strum, weekend picnics and softball/soccer games, running football plays like we were playing in the pros, Sunday bicycle trips to get a New York seltzer at Texaco, the fold down couch and chairs at Peach Lane, doing laundry at the laundry mat, long afternoon drives singing Cats and Tom Petty, the Elton John/Billy Joel concert and the Rolling Stones concert, Utah Football games, Jazz games, Utah Basketball games, you teaching Stacey how to drive a stickshift on a hill and that famous saying, you walking the sisters down the isle, spending my last moments as a single girl with you and you telling me how beautiful I looked on my wedding day, listening to you sing at my wedding, waking up from surgery in the hallway and seeing you there with RJ and my mom, watching you carry Corey to the NICU in blue scrubs, riding the tractor with you on the farm, watching you take care of your mother, watching you wrestle the boys or read them books...

Okay, so there is some of it.  I could write all day about all the memories I have.  Thank you for creating a life for me that is beautiful and for accepting every moment of my good and bad decisions.  Thank you for bringing me so many blessings and for accepting RJ into our family as one of your own children.  I love you eternally dad.  I hope you have a wonderful Father's Day today and always!

Much love.  Ti amo!

The Sibs

This day my dear sister embarks on a new journey...RAGNAR!!! I'm so proud of you Pengy Pants (aka Stacey). You have been working and training so hard for this day. What a great experience this will be. I wish I could be there to support you and scream your name as you passed by. How about I promise you this instead???? The next time I see you I'll walk right up to you and start screaming GO PENGY!!! Let's plan to meet somewhere in public so people will think I'm a wackadoodle and you're being attacked. It can be like the television show "What would you do?" That's a good question...what would you do? If I just started jumping up and down and screaming encouraging statements at you in some random place?

Who are we kidding Stace...I always scream loud encouraging things at you while jumping in place!!!

Also, to "coach" R to the J!!! How fun it's been to watch you two (and trusty little Ginger) go for your Ragnar training runs together. I love the relationship, trust and friendship you share. I love that we could sit around for a couple hours after and joke. I will miss these nightly runs in a way. You should keep it up...but maybe instead of EVERYDAY (as Corey would say) you could do it a couple times a week. Below is the poster RJ and I made for Stacey. RJ is going up to watch the runners with my mom and Drew. He'll be doing the loud screaming of encouragements temporarily.

I am really so proud of you Stacey! I know you are going to do a great job and have a fun time. Please know of my support and get ready to be blasted with screaming encouragement the next time you are getting dinner at Rumbi's.

I love you dear friend and sister!!!!! MUAH!

** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

And to my favorite and most affectionately named DIVA...Case, I am proud of you too! Look at all the hard work you have done...professionally and physically. You look absolutely amazing and I'm so happy that you are owning it. You are a beautiful person with an outstanding soul that is now shinning in your eyes. Your health and happiness are so important to me and it's great to get the feeling that you feel healthy and happy. You are such an inspiring person!

Loves and mad props to you sissy!!! MUAH!

Something Good This Way Comes

I am in the midst of learning a very important life lesson...from failure comes success. I have always associated negative thoughts with failure. To this point in my life I can't say that I've looked in the mirror and said that I was glad I failed at something I tried. I have always thought that accomplishment was the only road to a successful life, meaningful relationships, validation, happiness...just life itself. Now I know that that can be the case as well as so much more.

My journey in life began with every blessing, every need met...execrably so. I have always been surrounded by love, opportunity, support and safety. Growing up was not a generally difficult thing for me...until I hit my mid 20's. I made it through all the petty things in grade school, junior high and high school. I met, fell in love with and married my best friend and most wonderful man. I have always been close to my family. I have never been the type of person to have a million friends but those I have I treasure dearly. So...what hit so hard? What wall did I run into that challenged all of this? ME! If you notice...everything I have written was all about others. I value other people, their talents, their strengths and weaknesses. I sing their praises...and then when the room is quiet and I find myself alone with my thoughts, I turn inward...looking to find peace. When I was younger I don't think I understood peace or the feeling of it. When I came into my 20's I was ready to feel that and peace is not something that you can manufacture. I can't take some peace with some water and thirty minutes later I feel it. I can't jump into the lake and have peace cool me in the summer. I have to...get to feel peace...find that part of myself that no one else knows about. That part of myself that IS peace.

Anyway, when I went looking for peace I really went looking. I looked in accomplishments...school, work, marriage. I looked in books and religion. I looked in my relationships with others to see if my strand of peace was somehow associated to another. I looked to life for peace and I turned my back on life for peace. THEN it occurred to me...finally...that peace is in me. Innately peace is Chelsea Patrice Erickson Smith. It is a girl turned woman. It is an individual not a couple. It is a feeling not a book. It was and is within me.

Now, trust me when I say that the avenues I have taken to discover my peace are well trodden. Their are many...many!!! And they all seem to have their own medium in which they were discovered. I value my journey and experiences so much yet it intrigues me that I really do accept my failures in life, against life, with others, in school, in work, just in living, as my successes. There is detail, once again that I will leave to my heart and my heart only to know. But don't let that lead you to believe that I don't share this lesson with you.

I'm writing this post in honor of someone very dear to my heart that is going through an extremely hard experience in her life. I'm not even certain she reads this blog. I am connected to her in various capacities and consider her a fundamental person in my life daily. If you are reading this...you deserve to know this...

I do believe that challenges can make a human stronger. I do believe that life is ruled and commanded by energy. I believe wholeheartedly in miracles. I believe that everything happens for a reason (whether considered good or bad). I believe that being logical does have it's place but spirituality does also. I believe that there is reason to accept the past, live in the now and know that the future will happen. Most of all my dear, sweet friend...I believe "something good this way comes."

Much love to you all.

Babies

It's been so long since I've posted anything that it would be impossible to try and back track. So, I'll just start with what has been playing through my mind lately.

To some it may seem childish, selfish, attention getting...to me it's simply what I think about about and feel on a very real level.

I WANT TO BE A MOM!!! Without going into all the details, RJ and I have not been able to carry a pregnancy full term. Yes, there are things I know I could be doing to get my body in optimum shape...and then part of me thinks "why go through that loss again?" Going through the trauma of loosing multiple pregnancies in the midst of loosing grandparents, welcoming 2 baby brothers to this world, battling deep depression, loosing the acceptance of one's self, being fired from a job I loved, loosing friends, trying to gain trust in others and myself...it's just a jumbled confusing time in life and yet there is such a hole where life is absent.

Please know these thoughts come with a sense of knowing...not so much as a depression...yes, there is sadness but also awareness. I look at friends and family having these blessings enter their lives and then I look to RJ and I wonder if he wants to trade me in sometimes. I KNOW he would never voice a comment like that...I just know that he didn't sign up for a lot of things he has gotten from marriage. I AM eternally grateful for his unfailing love, companionship and friendship...I just believe he deserves all the blessings in life and he would be a WONDERFUL father.

This post is not some sort of pity party. I am surrounded by two of the sweetest little boys in my brothers, great neighbors and cousins that share the blessings of having a little one around. I just wonder at time what it would be like to have someone rely on me, come from me. I would love to look into adoption and consider that an honor and blessing to so many...I just don't know where to start and how to come up with money. My arms are open, my heart has marinated on this topic too long. Lullabys and sweet dreams to you all and to all the babes in arms and those needing mine...

Much love!