Notebooks

Have you ever looked on the back cover of a notebook?  I just did, and realized that there is a whole slew of information there, at least on my "exceed" brand notebook.  There is a map with each state capital listed, there is a metric conversion chart, there is some reminders about fractions, decimals, and percentages, and there is a chart about punctuation.  Seriously, how come nobody every mentioned this to me?

Well, maybe they did and I just wasn't paying attention.  Or maybe my memory has gone and the last time that I noticed it I was just as excited, which is very possible.  But anyway, I think it's pretty cool.

My favorite part, though, is a sentence written at the bottom.  It reads "Always double-check your work.  Norcom is not responsible for any errors or inaccuracies."  Nice.

Monkeys

I feel like I've had a couple of blog posts up my sleeve for the past couple of days but I can't really remember them.  Here's one I can remember though...

Jake and I really like bananas.  I'm not kidding, we like them a lot.  The problem is that I like bananas earlier than when Jake likes to eat bananas, so we started increasing the amount of bananas that we would buy at the store so that I wouldn't be able to eat them all before they got to the place where Jake would like to eat them.  I was shocked on the day when we made it up to 7 bananas purchased at one time.  Now, 7 seems even normal.  But last night, I think we hit the mark.

We bought 15 bananas.  I got 8 for me, and Jake got 7 (he made sure I remembered that his were the cute little ones and that I absolutely must not touch *his* bananas).  I can't believe that we have so many!  I've already eaten one- we'll see if I am able to eat all of mine before they turn past my eating stage.  

For real.  I think we're turning into monkeys!

I also want to say that I had a dude teach me about how to look for a watermelon last night.  He said that the whole sound of the melon telling its ripeness thing is bogus, and that they usually make fun of people who try to test it out while buying them.  He said his best advice is to get one that's not "pretty" because it has been on the vine for less time and usually tastes the best.  I haven't cut into the watermelon we purchased yet, but I'll let you know if that's a good method.  So there's my tidbit for the day!  

A tribute to my family

These past couple of days have been absolutely horrible.  Remember the oils that I mentioned before that smelled like root beer and fruit loops?  Well, apparently my body did not like them.  They clogged my follicles and made my legs really red, itchy, oozy with puss, and feel like they were burning.  A couple of days ago I was somewhat comfortable for a grand total of about 45 minutes throughout the whole day.  I couldn't even watch tv because I was so distracted.  I went to urgent care last night and got a shot of steroids (not like I drank a shot, but like they gave me a shot... in the butt... attractive) and they gave me more steroids and antibiotic to take at home since it was swollen and infected.  As long as I can keep the swelling down and keep it from spreading much more, I shouldn't have to go to the ER (thank goodness!).

For the past couple of days, my husband and my mom have done nothing but try to help.  Jake has done things for me he should have never had to do.  He probably didn't do that well on his final yesterday because he was too busy taking care of me to be able to adequately study.  He constantly brought me things, since I was basically bedridden.  He cooked for me, he sat with me, he made strange baking soda concoctions in the bathtub, he was simply there for me.  I couldn't have asked for a more supportive and loving husband.

My mom did absolutely everything she could think of to try to give me ideas that might make me more comfortable.  I'm not sure how many phone calls have occurred between the two of us in the past couple of days, but I'm sure it exceeds 30.  I've called her and woken her up in the middle of the night, she's called me with more ideas after doing some research, she made phone calls to people, she was incredibly sweet.  And she tolerated me when I was in so much pain that I was very short with her on the phone.  I don't think I could have made it through the past couple of days without her help.  Even just hearing her voice made me feel a little better.  My mom has one of the biggest hearts of anyone I know.

There have been other family and friends who have spent a lot of time in prayer and support of me too.  I'm so thankful for them.  I've had more people pray with me over the phone and in person than I have had in a long time.  So thank you.  All of you.  I couldn't have made it through the past couple of days without you.

Good friends and fresh starts

I'm having one of those days.  Things just haven't really gone right for most of the day, but I'm getting kind of annoyed with my self-pity.  I remember in college, Karine asked me one time if I wanted her to throw me a pity-party.  I jokingly said yes, but later that night she came down (she lived above me) with some party hats she had made with construction paper and baseball hats.  The one for me said "Guest of honor" on it.  She also brought me a rolled up piece of paper with a flower drawn on it.  

That was the coolest pity-party ever.  I'm gonna go think about how great of a friend she is and do some painting and then... I'm going to get over it and move on.  And tonight, I am going to watch The Biggest Loser live finale (even though it's 3 hours long).  It will be grand.  And tomorrow will be a new day with a fresh start.  

Oh. My. Gosh.

I've been fruit deprived for the past week.  Jake and I have some guidelines to follow with our eating habits (1 piece of fruit per day, vegetables with our dinner at least 5 times per week, 84 oz of water per day, etc), and in the past week I have had to scrounge for good fruit.  Jake and I REALLY like bananas, and I really like certain types of apples.  I also really like to buy one "special" kind of fruit every couple of weeks (cantaloupe, watermelon, grapes, etc.).  

We just went to Sunflower Farmers Market (the only place I will buy produce), and we bought some incredible stuff.  We got home and I just went crazy over the fruit (I already had eating an incredible orange earlier today that surprised me how good it was).  I ate almost a whole carton of strawberries.  Seriously.  They were HUGE and amazing.  I'm not kidding; they were about 4 inches long and super sweet.  Thank you, Lord, for Oxnard, CA and their amazing strawberries.

I also ate some blackberries and a banana.  I want to eat more, but we get to go to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner tonight because we sold a book on Amazon.  I will very much enjoy that too, but wow.  It's probably the most amazing food group out there.  I never want to go fruit deprived again.

Fruit loops and Root beer

So I have 3 1/2 pages so far on my paper.  Not too shabby, if you ask me.  Only 8 1/2 more pages to go!

I want to say that I am REALLY excited about these oils that my mom got for me.  I've been having major problems with shin splints, which really sucks for someone who really likes to run and wants to run, but can't.  Well I've gone to the chiropractor twice in the past week and a half, and I've been putting on these oils too.  One is for healing ligaments and the other is for pain relief. 

I ran this morning PAIN-FREE.  Incredible.  This picture is how I feel right now.

(Ok, so that picture was actually after the Cardinals won the World Series, but that's how I feel now!)

I could have run for miles and miles and miles, if I didn't think that would be horrible on my body.  It felt fabulous.  People really take for granted running when they don't have any pain.  I, on the other hand, generally feel pain when I run so it's absolutely wonderful to have no pain.  

The only down-side to the oils is that they smell pretty strong.  The healing one that I put on at night smells like Fruit Loops, and the pain one I put on in the morning smells like root beer.  It's an interesting mixture.  Luckily only Jake really has to smell it, cuz it's mostly gone during the day.  So here's to fruit loops and root beer for making my legs feel SO great!

Papers and phones

So I mentioned that I had an open theism paper due for theology about 1 week ago. Well, it technically was supposed to be due about 2 1/2 weeks ago, except it got postponed twice due to his realization of the timing of Easter (he didn't realize he had the paper due the day after it) and because of a major snowstorm. It all seemed a bit silly to me at the time. Well now I have a doctrinal summary paper (12-14 pages) that was supposed to be due on Monday, except I just got an email that he's going to postpone it due to the prior paper being postponed and we won't have our grades from that paper back before we turn this one in. I think that's nice, but not necessary either.  

The problem is, I was going to work really hard tonight and tomorrow on that paper, and now I feel much less motivated. I'm going to try to get it done by Monday anyway, but that lack of motivation really is a killer (said in the voice of Bartok from the movie Anastasia). We'll see what happens. I don't really want to have a paper and a final on the same day, and then have the same thing happen only 4 days later. 

And on another note, it's been quite amusing to watch my phone slowly fade away. First it sounded weird, then the outside picture faded to black, then I couldn't get any buttons to work (and thus make no calls), then the picture on the inside froze, then the picture on the inside turned completely white. So until my new phone arrives and I get everything transferred over, I can receive calls- but it's stuck on vibrate and I don't know who is calling- and that's about it. So if you're calling me, hope that I can actually hear it vibrate, and hope that I feel adventurous enough to actually answer it. :)