Sick

Hmmm... I'm so sick right now. I hurt. Everything hurts from my head to my throat to my whole body.I just want to lay here and cry. And my heart hurts too. Especially because my boys are SUCKING (the Jazz). What I wouldn't give for a Jazz comeback right now.

Crystal?

SOOO... yesterday I was made aware of these boxes that were shipped from a Temple to an old employee here in 2003. I opened them and they were chandeliers. So... this morning Melanie and I brought them down to our floor and inspected them to see if they were real Crystals. Well... they were, and so... I made a neclace. And then I said to my co-workers (with a gigantic smile and cheesy face) "who needs a husband when you got this. I'm done! SATISFIED!!!" So Melanie took my picture so I could show you all. WE were laughing so hard. By the way... I hate this picture. But... I wanted you to see the REAL crystal neclace.

It's Official...

Okay... We have a good news/bad news situation on our hands here.
I had my first voice lesson last night (I started taking voice lessons) The good news is that I am not tone deaf nor am I a pitchy singer. The bad news is... I dont' really have any. I just wanted to use the phrase "We have a good news/bad news situatuation on our hands"... cause I think it's funny. But I will tell you... I was so excited to come home and announce "Welp... It's official... I AM NOT TONE DEAF!" and smile REALLY BIG. Cause really... I had no idea before I went. I didn't even know what to expect. Now, I am so excited, even though I tried to talk myself out of going ALL. DAY. LONG. But.. I just said to myselt, "Tahnee. You are going and you are going to like it!" And so I did. I did turn down a foot massage yesterday though. But I thought about accepting- that's progress, right? I'll get there... baby steps.

A New Tahnee

Tomorrow, I officially start voice lessons. Part of the new Tahnee. No holds barred. I have always wanted to take voice lessons cause I am self conscious to play my guitar for anyone cause I don't think I have a very good voice. A friend in my ward does voice lessons so... I decided to go for it. It's time to become a person that is not self conscious and afraid. I am self conscious about way too many things. I need to stop this. It's time for a change. I might even get brave and get a pedicure. Letting someone touch my feet... that's HUGE for me... but... it's on the list of things to combat... Soooo.... baby steps... baby steps...

Painting

Here is the painting I started that night I woke up at like 2:30am sad. I finished it last night. It's watercolor.

Thanks to Aundrea and her Therapy Chair

Dear Aundrea,

Thank you for having a Therapy Chair! And a great listening ear. You, I LOVE!!!

Tahnee



Yesterday was kind of an interesting day at work. Let's just say I came out of a meeting feeling 50% IRRITATED and 50% THRILLED. So I pay my good friend Aundrea a visit and vent, in her therapy chair. It was great. I laughed, I yelled (as much as you can yell while whispering, so okay, maybe no ACTUAL yelling, but there were hands flailing and faces being made and teeth gritting- all while talking in a whisper tone- it was like Whisper-Yelling). Then I'd laugh and throw in a sarcastic joke, cause that is who I am.
Last night, or more like This morning I woke up at about 2:30am and couldn't go back to sleep. I just couldn't stop thinking. Not about work. You know when you just miss someone so much you can't stop thinking about them- that was me. I had to stop doing that, So I got up and got out all my water color paint stuff and started painting. It's good therapy for me. And now it's home waiting for me to finish.
This morning on the way in I was listening to my Ipod. Thanks to Sarah, I have adopted her idea of pumping myself up in the morning with music. I am creating a playlist of songs that keep the thoughts away I don't want to have, and bring in the good thoughts- the uplifting thoughts that seem to say "YOU CAN DO THIS- You are friggin' Tahnee Nielsen!" I found one to add to my list... I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor. OH. MY. HECK. Great song! If you haven't heard it... give it a good listen! That song is so much of how I feel.

The Angel in the Marble

I was listening to a talk today and a quote was presented by Michaelangelo in which someone had asked him how he makes such beautiful sculptures, to which he said:
"I saw an angel in the block of marble and I just chisled until i set him free."
This hit me kind of hard. This is how the Lord is with us in this test of life. He also said of his sculpture of David this...
"It is easy. You just chip away the stone that doesn't look like David."
Okay... so... again, this hit me hard, because this is what the Lord is doing with me, Tahnee. See... I look at it as we all start out as a block of stone. The Lord looks on me, Tahnee, and sees this angel, and he begins to chip away anything that doesn't "look like Tahnee". And it hurts, sometimes so bad you can't feel like you can go on, but you can, you just have to lose that thing because it doesn't "look like you" so it has to go. Sometimes it doesn't hurt, there are the smoothing times as well as the chipping times and those feel so good, but there has to be both to be perfect. Just go with it. It's for the best. What if David had been left unfinished or with a big block on his face, would he be beautiful or unflawed? NO. SO... in reality, the chipping is only chipping away our flaws. The things we all want to get rid of.

Beautiful Day

As I was driving in to work today I decided to give my ipod a try. I haven't listened to it in months. I put on good o'l Lee Dewyze. Remember him? Remember how I used to start the morning with him singing "Beautiful Day" to me. Well... this morning, on my way in I thought... I can listen to Lee... I love Lee. I miss Lee. So I put on "Beautiful Day"and let me just tell you that I belted that song out. It got me a little choked up and it hit me. The saying that Sarah put on my sign she gave me at Christmas "In A World Where You Can Be Anything... BE YOURSELF!" I felt like myself, the myself I actually like, for the first time a long time. I made me think, and I pondered on this for a good portion of the way up. A LOT of good things have happened in my life the last month or so. I have become closer to the Savior and stronger in the gospel than I think I have ever been, and that is a great thing. I have wanted to be someone different, recently. I was willing to do anything to just be someone different. I still struggle with that, BUT... this morning when I let Lee sing me my song, it's like the light went off inside me. I think I just haven't been myself for so many months, for such a long time, because I lost sight of who that is and who I want to become, that when I put in that song... it took me back. It also made me think of D.C. because I listened to it in the morning when we were out there. It made me realize... I don't need to completely change who I am to be something/someone different, because there are things that I do like about myself. I just need to find myself again. Spiritually I have been doing that and I feel like I am building a firm foundation there- which I cannot and will not live without again.
I CHOSE... to be myself cause even though there are those out there that hate the person I am, there are those that see me for who I really am and not for the mistakes I make. It's like Moroni with Pehoran, Alma decides that Pehoran has become corrupt and only cares about himself and has become this awful person and he writes him a letter totally judging him and Pehoran, in a gentle way replies to his LONG accusation and basically says, if you really knew the situation you would not have censured me. I have learned so much from this story of Moroni and Pehoran because a lot of times this happens, I do it myself, but I have decided to try to stop doing this. I decided to try to implement the motto into my life that I can only hope others will implement into theirs when dealing with me, and that is this:

Be patient with me, the Lord is not finished with me yet.

Let's face it... everyone is human and no one understands everything and we are all on this our own individually journey full of mistakes and lessons and trials and triumphs and we need to just be patient with one another because God is not finished with any of us yet. If he were, we wouldn't be here anymore. It's hard to do this... I know, but it's worth a shot. I guess I just think that my one wish for this new year would be for people to look at me this way... and if that is what I expect, then I should do the same.

SOOOO... In a world where I can be anything, I chose to be myself. Cause some people like myself... I'm just sayin'. And... I chose to let Lee sing to me every morning again too.

Grrrr... I hate getting my butt kicked!

I went out tonight and my date kicked my butt at bowling- Grrr.... it sucks being a competitive girl and losing... TWICE! I wanted to yell "THAT'S IT! AGAIN!!!!", but... being the girl, it's not really nice to demand they spend MORE money on you. So I dropped my head in defeat and swallowed my pride and slowly put my ball back. Stupid bowling! I forgot how much I liked bowling.

Anyway... Aundrea... this is for you... there will be no little "cookies" in my future, IF you know what I mean (wink, wink). LOL!!!! I'll come up and give you details Monday.

Dinner and a Movie with the girls

Let me introduce you to two of my favorite people. This is Melanie (smelly-melly) and Leilane (Leilane-Tahnee). These are the wonderful girls I get the pleasure of working with everyday. I sure love them. I know I have posted about them before, especially Leilane because Melanie and I tease her mercilously, but she is a good sport and loves us. We went to dinner and a movie and had a guy take our picture for us. I'm glad cause it turned out so cute. Just to clarify, we call Melanie "Smelly Melly" because it rhymes, not because she smells. Cause she doesn't. And I call Leilanie "Leilane Tahnee" because for years my brother had called me that because a long time ago a friend left a message on our home phone about her friend who was named Leilane and Rustin thought it was the funniest name, so he started to call me "Leilane Tahnee" so when I started working with Leilane and she tried to come up with nicknames for me that sounded like her name, I just started calling her my nickname. I really do love these girls. They are great friends and make everyday at work a party. We even have a very own reputation of being entertaining (we should probably learn to talk/laugh/tease quieter) and I'm sure the 11th floor misses us desperately. ha ha...

HELLO 2011!!!

Although I had a fun night on New Years Eve, I have never been so happy and excited to leave a year behind me as I am to leave 2010!!!

I had a dinner date on New Years Eve and I was able to go to The Family Tree restaurant in Santaquin. I have always wanted to go (since I moved there) but never had the chance, and I did on New Years Eve. We were the only 2 people in there, but who cares. It was great company and great food. I was pleased. Then off to a party. It was lots of fun. We played Mafia (they killed me on the 2nd round- rude. I barely knew anyone at that party) and The Office Clue- I got to be Jim Halpert cause I'm a little bit in love with Jim. Okay... I'm A LOT in love with Jim. One of the girls at the party and I were discussing this and she said the most amazing comment- and I totally agreed with her. She said "If Jim was a real person- I'd pretty much do anything to be with him- Even go fist to fist with other women." I laughed... and agreed. I also think that about Castle. Rick Castle... I get twitterpated just thinking about him. LOL- J/K. It's nice to have hollywood crushes.

Anyway... it was a fun night and great to say hello to 2011. I think this will be a fabulous year (fingers crossed).

Sunday I taught the Relief Society lesson. I have been preparing for quite some time as I new it was going to be my turn when I was called in to the presidency. It was kind of funny cause Jesse and I were teaching on the same subject- coinidence- so we gave each other information. I did about 4 different outlines trying to fit in everything I wanted to tell them. The topic was on Getting the Word of God IN you and not just ON you (to sum it up) and how important Searching/Pondering/Praying is. So... as you can imagine, there was a pluthera of information. Plus... this is what I have studying my guts out for the past 2 months. I ended up printing off talks to give them to take home and read in their spare time so I didn't have worry about getting it all in. The best ones I had were as follows:

Healing the Wounded Soul- Jack R. Christiansen (if you have talked to me in the past 2 months I'm sure you've heard ALL ABOUT this one).
Covenants and Sacrifice- Henry B. Eyring
God Wants a Powerful People- Sheri L. Dew (I have been talking about this one a ton too!)
Constant Companion- Jack R. Christiansen
The Transforming Power of Faith- Richard G. Scott
Good Better Best- Dallin H. Oaks
God and Human Tragedy-how the Lord transforms tragedy into triumph

Anyway... I loved studying for that lesson and I loved teaching it.