Just a mist

February!

2012-02-16T10:35:00.000-08:00

I can hardly believe it's February! Emilee is already 4 1/2 months old. She is SO cute and such a joy. She takes up all my time! :) She loves to play with toys now. She has several bug toys (a couple of bees, a firefly, and a lady bug), a squeeky Sophie the Giraffe, and a few little chewie toys. She loves them all and likes to stare at them and study them and grab them and put them in her mouth of course. One of her favorite toys lately is not even a toy... it's the cover on her boppy pillow! It has a cupcake printed fabric and she is mesmerized by it. She sits there and scratches at all of the different cupcakes and tries to eat them. She is just now starting to play with her voice. She'll lay there playing and make screechy sounds. Every couple of days she'll get in a giggly mood and crack up if you make faces or noises at her. She still loves to be held all the time, doesn't like tummy time very much, loves to smile, loves her pacifier, loves when Dada gets home from work, has a bit of a temper sometimes, and likes to relax in the bath. :) I LOVE snuggling her, playing with her, and making her smile and laugh!

This coming Sunday is our SIXTH wedding anniversary! All together we've been a couple for almost 9 years. I love my Ryan so much. He is so patient and loving. It has been fun to see him as a daddy the last few months. I only knew him as my husband and best friend for 5 years, and now I'm getting to know him as the father of my sweet baby, and I LOVE IT! She has captured his heart and it is so sweet. On Sunday, Grammy is going to watch Emilee and Ryan and I are going to see The Vow ( http://www.moviefone.com/movie/the-vow/52482/main ) and go out to dinner at Crush. We were going to try Crush a few months back but we went on a Friday and it was super busy and they told us we would need a reservation. Fancy-shmansy. So tonight Ryan will call to make sure we can get in on Sunday. :) YAY! I'm excited.

Also, yesterday Ryan had his 7th work anniversary. It's going to be 10 years before we know it! Over the past 7 years Ryan has worked so hard and has moved up from an entry level position to the head of his department, overseeing about 10 employees. Several years back I realized (again) the power of prayer, taking two particular bible passages into action... Phillipians 4:6 - "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." And also The Prayer of Jabez. His story is found in 1 Chronicles chapter 4, but the gist of it is verse 10: " Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, 'Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.' And God granted his request." I began to submit our financial fears to God, not "being anxious" but presenting my requests to God through prayer. I prayed, similar to Jabez's prayer, for God to "expand our territory", but specifically praying this prayer regarding Ryan's employment. Since I started consistently praying for God to bless us in that specific area, He has blessed us again and again! He has blessed Ryan with promotions, raises, a hard-working attitude, a good work ethic, and favor with his bosses. Thank you, Lord! In fact, even before Ryan got the job at APC, he prayed for a job with some specific needs... a minimum of what he needed in a job to feel comfortable proposing to me and starting our life together. Not much longer, this job posting came up with the exact needs that he prayed for. He applied, interviewed, got offered the job, accepted, and the rest is history! :)

Emilee's first Christmas

2011-12-26T16:40:00.000-08:00

We had a great Christmas (and Christmas Eve) this year! We spent Christmas Eve at my parents house and Christmas dinner at our house with Tammy. We were blessed both days with tons of wonderful gifts - especially Emilee! :) She got a bunch of great toys and clothes and lots of hugs and kisses too! We had some great quality family time and it was so much fun.

Busy Book for my favorite boys!

2011-12-25T23:19:00.000-08:00

I made a Busy Book (aka Quiet Book / Activity Book) for my boys for Christmas. It was so fun to make but it took forever! I'm glad that I finished in time for Christmas and that they (and their mommy) like it! :)

Here are pictures I took, Mostly before it was assembled, but after the pages were completed. FUN!

Alphabet

Planting Grass, Carrots, and Flowers

Picking Apples

Make an ice cream cone

Burger and Fries

"Paper" doll

Phone (and #'s for counting and learning phone #'s)

Tic-Tac-Toe

Mr (and Mrs.) Potato Head

(she's kinda ugly! haha!)

Cars (and color matching)

Vroom Vroom!

Barn & Animals

(If some of these pages look familiar... I must admit, I stole some ideas from other blogs/websites, and some ideas were my own.)

Decorating the tree

2011-12-05T22:02:00.001-08:00

I'm so excited for Emilee's first Christmas! :) Tonight we decorated our tree. I made yummy pepporcorn steak for dinner with rice and green beans. We built our tree (Yeah, it's fake, whatever), put the lights on and decorated. Emilee slept through ALL of that! I can't believe we actually got it all done! I found Taylor Swifts Christmas album on grooveshark and played it while we decorated the tree. We also sipped peppermint hot chocolate with whipped cream, marshmallows and crushed up Ghirardelli's peppermint bark on top. YUM!

Ryan stringing the lights

All ready with our hot chocolate!

Yum yum!

This is my newest ornament. No special meaning - I just love snowmen and he was sooo cute and on sale! :)

This one is for our first year of marriage. It's our wedding photo and the tag says "2006" which is the year we were married.

We got this one when we bought our first house

This year Nae made me a beautiful cupcake ornament in memory of our best friend Carrisa! I love it! :)

I got this last year shortly after she passed away. It's a bling-y frame, just like she'd like. One of my favorite pictures of us. I miss her!

We got this when we were in Maui last November.

Ryan LOVES sports...

And I love GIRAFFES!!! :)

Daddy also loves Emilee

The Family! (Tried to set up the self-timer. HAHA.)

Emilee the Christmas-Cutie!!!

Now I just need to get a special ornament for Emilee's first Christmas. I really like the one Grammy Tammy got this year. Little pink booties! I need it! :)

My sweet girl

2011-11-20T04:06:00.000-08:00

Emilee is such a sweetie. She just turned 7 weeks on Friday. I can't believe she's almost 2 months old. It makes me feel like I if I close my eyes it's going to go by in a flash and I'm going to miss everything.

She is already growing and changing. She weighs over 9 lbs now and has grown 3 1/2 inches since birth! She has been really interested in faces lately. She likes to stare at me and she'll even give me a sweet little smile sometimes. She'll go from concentrated, furrowed brow look on her face to a big, wide-eyed, crooked little smile. It is by far the sweetest little thing I've ever seen!!! Sometimes when she's looking at me I can tell she's looking at my hair. I guess she likes my fluffy bed-head. :) The best is when she stares at her Daddy's face and gives him smiles! I love when she starts to stare at him across the room, just waiting for him to come look at her and talk to her. I think she misses him when he's at work! :) Ryan gets the whole week off for Thanksgiving and we are so HAPPY about that!

Emilee has a lot of different sounds. She is a GASSY little baby. She's always making us giggle with her farty-butt, and sometimes we just look at each other with surprised looks wondering how THAT sound came out of THAT sweet little body. Bahahaha! She also has a lot of different cries. She gets PISSED if I set her down unexpectedly or when I take off her diaper just before her bath. She sometimes does a big, loud cry and then it turns to "the silent cry". She turns all red and I wonder for a second if she'll ever take her next breath or if her angry silent cry will last FOREVER! She also has a really quiet, sweet cry. (That's my favorite, for obvious reasons.) :) She has an urgent cry. She has a "my tummy hurts and I'm miserable" cry. She also has a cute little whiny cry that she makes when she's eating and she loses it and can't find it for a second, or when I take her away to burp her. She's starting to make a lot of cooing and squawking sounds. I love it.

She sleeps a lot but has a cranky time in the evenings. She loves to be held and snuggled. Her hair sticks up all cute after her bath. She snores and makes funny snorting sounds. She loves to lay on her tummy lately. She's got the softest skin EVER! She has a little outie belly button right now. She already likes to watch TV and look at the computer screen - SIGH!

I love watching her grow but I'm sad it's going by so fast. Last night Emilee & I went to bed earlier than Ryan, and I just stared at her little face for a while before I turned off the lamp. I prayed and thanked God for her. I'm so thankful for her. I asked God to protect her from harm, lyme's disease, cancer... boys. :-/ I prayed that she would grow up knowing Him in a deep, personal way, and that she'd make good choices easily. Thank you Lord for my sweet girl!!!!!! :)

Missing her

2011-11-04T21:12:00.001-07:00

I've been thinking about Carrisa all the time lately and I've been missing her A LOT. The weather is changing and it's starting to feel like fall which will eventually feel like winter. I guess it's just getting close to the time she passed away last year. I'm also awake at crazy hours feeding Emilee with nothing else to do but THINK. And she comes to mind a lot these days. Everything reminds me of her...

It's random stuff, too. Like, sometimes it's stuff no one else would understand. We used to make this one funny face that we called "the bass face" because it looked like a fish with it's mouth open. Well, earlier today Emilee TOTALLY made "the bass face" and I was cracking up and I wanted to tell her about it. And then there's stuff that reminds me of her that would remind anyone of her - like if a Johnny song comes on the radio, or that song If I Die Young (which was sung at her funeral). And a bunch of stuff in between.

The girls (Jessica, Carla & Nae) and I were talking about her the other day. We were discussing how weird it is that life just goes on without her. Before Carrisa died she knew that Lynae was having a boy and I'm pretty sure she knew what she was going to name him, but she never got to meet Caleb. She never even go tot know about Emilee. I would have loved for her to be a part of Emilee's life. I would've loved for her to meet Emilee and see her sweet face. Emilee is sooooooo special to me, and Carrisa was like a sister to me. It just seems like they should know each other. It's just crazy that I went through a whole pregnancy without her and now I'm starting an entirely new chapter of my life, and she is not here. I'm looking at Emilee now, thinking about how much Carrisa would've loved her. She would've probably bought cute shoes and clothes for her. I would've been just as excited for Carrisa to bring Norah to meet Emilee as I was for Emilee to meet the boys (James, Joey & Caleb).

I can't believe it's almost been a year. Somehow it seems like yesterday and like forever ago all at once. I see pictures of Norah on Jenni's blog and sometimes can't believe it's her. She's so grown up! I miss her. But it's crazy how in my mind's eye, she's kind of just frozen in time at the age she was when Carrisa died.

Tomorrow we are having our "Friends Thanksgiving". Carrisa will be missed. It was an event that she usually planned or helped plan, and something she got really excited about. Later this year we'll also be celebrating Christmas together with our close group of friends. It will be bittersweet. It was during our Christmas celebration with friends last year that she was quickly and unexpectedly taken. I still sometimes can't believe that was real - that we pretty much watched our best friend die right in the midst of a happy, fun, carefree celebration. It sounds more like a sad movie than something that could've really happened.

Carrisa will be on my mind a lot this season. I will remember her joy. I will remember her beautiful smile. I will remember her hospitality and how much she loved others. And probably mostly I will remember our inside jokes and the little things that remind me of her. Something will happen and I will look over to share a giggle with her, but she will not be there. And then, instead of be sad that she's gone, I will have to try to be thankful that we had that bond and were able to share those memories, and be thankful that I will see her smile again someday.

Emilee

2011-10-31T00:11:00.000-07:00

Emilee Amber Bryson

Emilee made her first appearance into the world exactly 1 month ago today! :) (Well, technically yesterday now that it's after midnight. I'm feeding her right now and also getting a head start on our Halloween candy stash (hey, remember, it's technically the 31st right now!) so I'll probably be typing most of this with one hand. Please excuse typos. :)

Emilee's birthday was September 30th at 5:52pm. With her due date being Oct 21st, I really didn't think I'd be having a September baby. But the Grandmas were happy because they both have September birthdays themselves. We went in early on the 29th to be induced because of my low amniotic fluid levels. Not a whole lot happened that day. I laid in bed most of the day hooked up to a couple of monitors and an IV. Overnight and the next day I did start to notice contractions, although they weren't very strong. I still didn't sleep well since I had my eyes on the monitors most of the night, and I still had to pee every couple of hours, and it wasn't my own bed, and a million other reasons.

In the morning my doctor checked me and I was only at "almost 2 cm". It had been about 24 hours since they started the induction. They gave me larger doses of meds and the contractions started to kick in a little. Still, not too bad, but I could definitely feel them and some of them hurt. My doctor told me he'd check in with me later that day. He was hoping to break my water then (that morning), but I hadn't progressed enough. He came back around 4pm later that day. He checked me and I was still at only about 2cm. He told me he would try to break my water anyway. He left for a few minutes, and while he was gone I felt a gush which I thought was my water breaking. I had Ryan peek to see if that's what he thought it was, and he said that he wasn't sure and that it just looked like a lot of blood. I was pretty sure that sometimes blood came out too when your water broke, but it didn't seem normal. We called the nurses and doctor in and they checked it out. It turns out it was not my water breaking. I'm still not sure what that was. They didn't seem to be too concerned. But they did say that if it happened again that they would send me in for a c-section since they weren't sure what it was. Then he broke my water.

At this point I wasn't totally freaking out, but I was a little bit freaked out by the blood. I realized I was worried about the baby, too. I was also EXTREMELY tired at that point. It had been a day and a half, I had barely slept, I was nervous about all sorts of things and worried that the baby was going to be ok. On top of that, the contractions started to kick in pretty hard within minutes of him breaking my water. I started to stress out A LOT and I told Ryan that I didn't think I was going to make it to the end. I was only at 2cm, and that took almost 36 hours! Was I going to be able to do another 12 hours, or even 1 hour? It didn't feel possible. I was wayyy too exhausted. I was also in more pain now AND way more worried, and even if I made it to 10cms, then I'd have to have the energy to PUSH her out. I can't do it. I wanted to get the c-section. But it just sounded scary. It was never something I pictured myself doing. It wasn't because I had anything against c-sections - I just never planned for it. I didn't know if my labor would be 2 hours or 2 days, but I never pictured it being a c-section. I may have ended up getting a c-section anyway though if any little thing went wrong at that point. So was it worth laboring for several more hours just to have the same end result? I wrestled with what I should do. The decision was mine (and Ryan's) to make. I am sooo indecisive. And Ryan isn't much better than I am. We can't even figure out what to eat for dinner most of the time! haha! I didn't want to "give up" or take the easy way out. I realized though, it wasn't going to be much easier. It might be easier beforehand, but the recovery isn't any easier. I had already been through a day and a half of this. It was OK to get a c-section. So, we made the decision to have a c-section. I thought I would be all freaked out, but as soon as we made the decision I was SO happy. I knew she'd be here soon. Safe and in my arms. :)

They prepped me and told me she'd be here in less than 30 mins. Oh my goodness! They gave Ryan clothes to cover up with which included shoe covers. We joked about whether they'd fit him or not and told the nurses they might have to sew two together for each foot (he wears size 15 shoes). I guess they ended up fitting him though.

Our anesthesiologist had a really weird sense of humor. I wasn't sure about him at first, but I ended up liking him (I think). He prepped me and gave me an epidural for the surgery. I could not feel my legs AT ALL, and it kicked in almost instantly. I couldn't feel any pain during the surgery, but I could feel a lot of tugging around. It was the strangest feeling EVER! I was so tired at this point, and I just looked at Ryan with really wide eyes the whole time, thinking "what the HECK is going on?!" They told Ryan he could peek over the curtain to see the surgery if he wanted to. He said "umm, nahhh". Haha!

Pretty soon we heard the sweetest sound in the world - little Emilee's first CRY! We held hands and smiled and kissed and couldn't believe our ears. They told me she had a lot of dark hair. I couldn't wait to meet her. They took her away to clean her up and weigh her. They called Ryan over to hold her. I could hear them all over there, but I couldn't see them. I forgot that the doctors would have to take a few minutes to sew me back up again (duh). They were over there with her for probably only like, 3 minutes but it felt like FOREVER! Then Ryan brought her over to me and put her really close to my face. She was the most precious thing I've ever seen. 6 pounds, 12 oz of pure CUTENESS! Ryan looked so happy and excited. It was awesome.

They brought Ryan into the recovery room while they finished up with me, and he got to spend a good 5 minutes in there all alone with his daughter. He loved it.

They lifted me off the surgery table onto a bed to wheel me into the recovery room. I could see them lifting me and my legs onto the bed, but I almost didn't believe they were my legs! I couldn't feel a thing. It was SO weird. In the recovery room, they let me hold her and right away she started to look for "food". She was the sweetest thing I had ever seen. It was hard for me to hold her since I was so tired, but mainly because I couldn't move most of my body. It just felt awkward to hold her. But I didn't want to let go either. :)

A little while later our family came in to see her. They were talking to me and taking pictures and the nurses were telling me things but I was so tired. I literally could hardly keep my eyes open. I kept closing them and just nodding, pretending like I was hearing what they were saying when I really wasn't. It was crazy. I had never been so tired in my life. But I was so happy. And I definitely wouldn't have made it much longer had we not had the c-section. It was the right decision. And Emilee was there, in my arms, safe & sound. :)

Stuff for a 5 day stay at the hospital, plus gifts for Emilee from all of our visitors!

We needed a cart to wheel it all out of there!

On our way home :)

Our little family of 3. :)

Meeting Emilee soon? :-)

2011-09-26T17:25:00.000-07:00

On Thursday we went in for a routine ultrasound appointment, and they found that my amniotic fluid was measuring pretty low. This can sometimes be risky to the baby because there's just not as much "cushion" around her and the umbilical cord. Even though she seemed to be very strong and doing well, they sent us over to the hospital for some monitoring and hydration, in hopes that the fluid level would go back up to normal. On Friday morning (after a MINIMAL amount of sleep), the doctor measured my fluid level and it went back up. Yay! So they sent us home. Emilee's heart rate and movement stayed very, very good the whole time which is an excellent sign!

They scheduled us again this morning to get a non-stress test done to make sure the baby was still doing well. They also measured my fluid level again. My fluid level was similar to what it was on Friday. Normal, but on the lower end of normal. Emilee did well during the NST. But because my fluid was not excellent, they sent us into the hospital again today. On my way out of the doctor's office before we left to the hospital, I checked in with him to see when my next appointment should be. He told me that the doctor from the ultrasound place originally suggested that they induce me this Thursday (when I turn 37 weeks pregnant) if my fluid continued to stay low or questionable. (What?!) He told me he was going to call her and check in again on that recommendation...

So, we went over to the hospital and they monitored Emilee for a few hours. They also wanted to see how she behaved under the stress of contractions. We tried to get a few contractions going on my own, but it wasn't very successful, so they put me on a low dose of pitocin. Usually it's used to induce labor but in this case, they gave me a very small dose just to bring on a couple of contractions. I had about 3 - 5 contractions - very small and not painful at all. Emilee did WONDERFUL again. YAYYY! The doctor came to the hospital near the end of that test and checked out the paperwork himself. Everything looked good. He told us that he is going to go ahead and go with the recommendation of inducing me this Thursday. THIS THURSDAY - SEPT 29th!!! I'm not due until Oct 21st, but I will be about 37 weeks along by then which is in the "safe zone". :) I am excited to meet her, but nervous, too - mostly just completely caught off guard and kind of unprepared. Okay, maybe almost completely unprepared!!! But I know this is the right thing to do and that everything is going to be ok.

The downside to inducing is that it might end up taking FOREVER. He also checked me today and I'm not dilated or effaced AT ALL so I'm kind of starting from ground zero. Hopefully that pitocin will just kick in on Thursday and things will move along quickly. But it might end up being a very long, sleepless process. I'm a little worried about my energy level and I'll probably wear out a little faster than the average person because of my lyme-related fatigue symptoms. But we will see. I know everything will be ok, but there's a lot to think about! I don't imagine she'll get here til AFTER the 29th, just because I suspect it'll take at least 24 hours. But who knows.

Thank you everyone for all of your prayers, support, and FOOD! :) I have the most amazing friends and family. Continue to pray for us and especially for Emilee's safety! She's been doing great so far, so let's hope she'll continue to do wonderful! I can't wait to see her little face (and hands and feet and tummy and all of her CUTENESS)!!!!!!!!!

PS - i just have to say that Ryan is the most wonderful husband and already a GREAT DADDY!!! :)

Baby Shower

2011-09-11T21:11:00.000-07:00

Lynae (with the help of some wonderful friends) threw me and Emilee an AMAZING baby shower last weekend!!! It was so beautifully decorated and well thought out. It was a really special blessing. A bunch of special ladies were able to come and they really did shower (DOWNPOUR) me in love and gifts. I got all sorts of things from my registry and cute little clothes and accessories. I really didn't expect to get pretty much everything I had hoped for. I know that means that people spent generously on the individual gifts AND group gifts. I just feel overwhelmingly BLESSED by my friends and family.

I was missing Carrisa a lot that day, just because if she were still here she would've been a huge part of the party & planning. I just missed her a lot that day. When I saw how Lynae went all out on making the party and decorations so perfect, it made it almost feel like Carrisa was a part of it. Carrisa's sister Danae showed up early (by accident, actually) and was able to put her own special touch on everything, too. Carrisa's family sent me some gifts since they weren't in the area. I also got a few dresses that belonged to Norah (including her totally CUTE pink princess dress), and a special quilt from Meghan that had pieces of fabric from different things, some that Carrisa has picked out for other projects. It was just nice that she wasn't forgotten by others that day, because she was definitely on my mind!

Here are a few pictures. Enjoy!

Not for long, cutie-pie! ;-) (wink!)

Afterwards, the ladies from my family stayed and the men joined us and we celebrated my mom's 50th birthday together. It was so nice of her to let me "steal" her birthday weekend away. I felt so appreciative that day for the wonderful mommies I have in my life that have been wonderful examples to me - my mom, my sister, Ryan's mom Tammy, and my grandma Audrey too. I hope I can be a great mommy to Emilee. I can't wait to meet her. LESS THAN 6 WEEKS LEFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

7 Months!

2011-08-18T20:48:00.001-07:00

Yeah, I know I haven't blogged in 100 years, but whatever! I'm going to try to start again. Being pregnant is hard work, and when I type all day at work I don't feel much like typing when I get home. :)

I'm about 7 MONTHS PREGNANT now! We're having a little girl... Emilee Amber Bryson. I lovvvvee her so much. It's weird to think about how much I love her and I don't even know what she LOOKS like yet! Ryan and I are sooooo excited to meet her!

Along with the excitement lately I've had a little bit of anxiety, too. It's not too bad, I just started to get NERVOUS once I realized how soon she will be here. I'll be 31 weeks tomorrow, and my doctor said that it's safe to have her anytime after 36 weeks (and really, that I should expect her to come anytime after that point - more likely closer to 38 to 40 weeks, but STILL). THAT is SOON!!! My baby shower is in about 2 1/2 weeks. We're doing a pretty-purple-lavender-silver-girly-lacey-beautiful theme, which will also be the theme of her room. The invitations turned out really cute. I forgot to snap a picture, but it's similar to this idea we found on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/pin/110450583/

We used a white doily on the outside and the paper inside was lavender, and we used a dark purple ribbon to tie it all together.

We're going to decorate with lacey stuff, purple flowers, and purple & silver tissue paper poms. I'm really excited to celebrate EMILEE with all the ladies I love.

After I either get the bedding at my shower or buy it after the shower, I'm going to see if my dad wants to help me paint the room (so that I can match the shade to the bedding). Probably just a really light lavender color. I decided to keep the bedding simple:

Then I'll be able to add whatever I want to it. I'm going to do mostly light purple/lavender stuff like the bedding and I'm going to do sliver as an accent color (and probably white and a dark purple as an accent, too). I will probably incorporate butterflies into the theme. I thought it'd be fun to do a chandelier and possibly this christmas-lights-behind-a-sheer-curtain effect like this (pinterest, again) maybe on the wall behind the crib:
http://pinterest.com/pin/55028365/

It's really fun to be planning for a girl. I always wanted a boy and then Nae & Seth gave me 3 of the sweetest boys in the world as nephews. Now we're ready for the GIRL! :) Emilee & the upcoming birth and her room and our life once she's here are the things that have been consuming 95% of my thoughts lately. I really need to figure out what is going to be best for us regarding my job after my maternity leave is over. Ryan is such a wonderful provider and he has been blessed in his job. I am SOOO thankful for that, and for him. I don't know if we can afford our house payment and a new baby and all of our medical insurance on one income just yet. We shall see! I will have a little bit of time to figure it out while I'm on leave, but I'm going to be busy!

Oh baby, baby!

2011-04-05T17:58:00.000-07:00

I don't think I've mentioned this on the blog yet, although, all of you know... but, I'M PREGNANT! :) I'm 11 1/2 weeks along. My due date is October 21st. I can't wait to meet my lil sweetie! :) So, we don't know if it's a boy or a girl yet since it's too early to tell. I've been throwing around some room decor ideas for both. :) FUN! I'm thinking of maybe doing a Foresty/Naturey/outdoorsy theme either way, but especially if it's a boy. This is an idea of something I'd like for a boys room:

I LOVE the little bear the most :)

Then I was thinking of putting some trees on the wall, maybe like one of the decals in these etsy listings (but maybe just paint them - or have someone ELSE paint them - instead:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/59808643/vinyl-wall-decal-sticker-art-birch-tree

http://www.etsy.com/listing/66111630/vinyl-wall-decal-sticker-art-winter

http://www.etsy.com/listing/61739688/removable-vinyl-wall-sticker-decal-art

For a girl, if I decide to go with an outdoorsy theme, I kinda like the idea of birdies better than Bears & Owls & such. :) I like this one:

I even found this wall decal on Etsy that I like, and then I noticed that they have the same bedding in the picture! :) http://www.etsy.com/listing/61299260/tree-with-birds-and-fawn-decal-set-kids

I've also always wanted to do dusty purple and pale sage sooo, I might have to find something like that instead for a girl. So far I haven't been able to find the most perfect-est colors, so we'll see. :)

Keep Us

2011-02-16T16:39:00.000-08:00

I've never understood it when people get excited about rainy weather. I mean, I sort of understand how people might like the change of scenery, and the thought of snuggling up inside the house. I guess maybe I don't really like change much at all, and also, I get my fair share of snuggling in even when it's sunny out. Have you ever heard of evenings...? :) To be honest, rainy days kind of send me into a bit of a depression. I don't always HATE the rain, but it puts me in kind of a somber mood.

Today I worked from home, and the weather outside is dreary with the sun TRYING to make an appearance here and there. I think being alone, plus the weather, plus listening to soft music all day has been somehow making me think a lot about Carrisa. I miss her SO much. I have been doing better than I thought I would. I sometimes go a whole week without getting too sad over her loss - That's not to say that I don't think about her, because I think of her all the time. But I can go a while without being overwhelmed by it all. Today is different though. She's been on my mind this whole week, actually.

Norah went to Colorado last week and is starting her new little life in the Goodlin familiy. I am so happy for her. I'm sad for myself though, that I won't see her grow up as closely as I would've if Carrisa were still here. I know it's what's best though. And God has been reminding me how great it is - mostly through pictures, updates, and blog posts from Carrisa's family. This is one of my most favorite pictures in the world. This is Norah going to sleep in her new home (clutching her "baby", of course!), and her new big sister is kissing her goodnight. :) ADORABLE!

When I see Norah, especially in this picture, I see Carrisa. The look so much alike. Even small things like their hairline remind me of each other. It sends me back to the wee hours of the morning on December 12th, 2010... Just a few hours after Carrisa's passing. I stood by myself in a room with my best friend; except she wasn't there. Her memory, her body... those were there, but her spirit had already gone to be with her Savior. I wanted to remember her in 5, 10, or 20 years the same way I would if she were still here. I rubbed her hair for a minute, told her how much I loved her and would miss her, said my goodbyes, and then kissed her on the forehead. I've heard before that out of all of our senses, Smell has been dubbed as the "memory sense". The memory of a smell will last longer than the memory of a sight or even sound. So, after saying my goodbyes and kissing her forehead, I smelled her hair so that I could have something else to hold on to. When I see Norah or rub her hair, it reminds me of her Mommy. It reminds me of how much I'll miss her and how sad I am that Norah will never know her. Through ALL of the pain and sorrow that the death of my best friend has brought, there have been miracles right before my eyes, and even a sense of overwhelming joy at times. Carrisa's in heaven with the God of the universe. It doesn't get any better than that.

While remembering Carrisa today, I was thinking about the week that followed the tragic night that we lost her. Especially the next two days. With the exception of going to church, sitting in front of the TV, and occasionally finding something to eat, I basically stayed in bed. I remember that night we didn't go to bed until about 4am because we had been at the hospital really late. We were EXHAUSTED, but we couldn't help but stay up and talk about her and hold each other. We did the same thing for the next few days. Every time I'd wake up, I'd have to remember again that it was not in fact a nightmare, but it was real. Time stood still. We told our employers that we needed time off that week. We slept at strange hours. We stayed up late talking and slept all day. I'd get up for a few hours, and then go back to bed and cry myself to sleep. There's a song by Peter Bradley Adams that I've always LOVED, but it reminds me sooo much of the days just after Carrisa's death. The lyrics are printed below. I'm highlighting two verses. The first and second ones are what remind me so much of those days, and the third one, I just LOVE and it reminds me of the hope we have in this verse: For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. (2 Corinthians 4:17). Our troubles don't FEEL light and momentary, but in the scheme of eternity, they really are momentary. :)

Here are the lyrics:

Keep Us - Peter Bradley Adams

When the rains set in, we had no where left to go,
so we just stayed in bed while the thunder rolled.

There's a comfort in the rain, one that lovers only know.
So we lay hand in hand while the water rolls.

Every season will turn 'til the world is upsidedown.
Rivers overflow, then go underground.

But in the eye of the storm, and the safety of this house,
we lay hand in hand while the world turns round.

So keep us, keep us,
Keep us from the storm.

There's a lesson in the rain, that change will always come.
Let us ride this wave and then greet the sun.

And though the ground may shake and we think we've had enough,
We must raise our flags for the ones we love.

So keep us, keep us,
Keep us from the storm

Friends

2011-01-24T10:24:00.000-08:00

I had a great weekend. On Friday, Ryan and I made a last minute visit to Paradise to hang out and BBQ with Lynae & Seth. Another couple from our church (the Candlers) came, too. We enjoyed some delicious food together (thanks SETH!) and some good times. Even though Ryan and I are shy with new friends, it was good to be around other people. They are a nice couple and more talkative than us, which helps. For a little while Ryan joined the boys outside by the BBQ while the girls chatted inside with the babies. I also got to see my most favorite boys in the WORLD, so that's always an enormous PLUS! I went through James' sesame street song book with him again. You know I love him a lot if I'm willing to SING in front of people I barely know so that he can have fun! He loves that little sing-along book so I like to do it with him to see him smile a whole bunch and to hear his cute little singing voice. After much hesitation (on his part) I finally convinced him to get OUT of his high chair and come sit on my lap. He's my little snuggle bug. Joey looked sooooo cute in his "uncle Ryan shirt" (stripey polo). He decided he wanted Ryan to pick him up, so Ryan did. Then after about a minute Ryan set him down and Joey whined with his arms in the air like "pick me up again, uncle Ryan!" It was the cutest thing. He loves his uncles! Joey played outside in the leaf pile and acted like a total boy. It was so cute. I told Joey I'd rather eat him for dessert than the chocolate chip cookies cuz he's sooooo SWEET! :)

On Saturday morning we worked together on picking up the house in preparation for our lovely out of town guests! Adam and Ashley and little Lucy visited this weekend and it was SOOO nice to have them around. We miss them so much and wish they would move BACK! Although, let's do Chico instead of Paradise, mkay guys?! The guys (Adam, Dustin & Tones) came over around noon to play video games and Lucy took a nap. They were all so cute on the couch together, giggling. I meant to snap a picture but I never did. I was gonna put it on Facebook and post the song "The boys are back in town, boys are back in towwwn!" haha. It was too cute.

I ran a few errands and then made my way over to Carrisa's house around 2-ish. Carrisa's parents and sis Candice went through all of Carrisa's stuff last week and sorted it out. They had an open house day for people to come by and see Norah, say "goodbye" to Carrisa's place, and pick out any items we might want from Carrisa's belongings. It was kind of weird going through all of her stuff and picking out what we wanted. But at the same time, I know she'd want people to take what was special to them. We found a necklace that had a little silver pendant that looked like a mom & daughter and their arms kind of made a heart shape. We set that aside so that Norah could have it later. Carrisa's sister Danae pulled out some other pieces of jewelry so that Norah can either have them later or just see what kind of style her mommy had. Carrisa had tons of great shoes, but none of us wore exactly the right size to fit into her shoes. There was one black pair that I really liked, and I remember thinking about asking Carrisa when she was still here if she'd consider selling them to me. Carrisa mostly wore a size 8 (sometimes 7 1/2), and I wear more like an 8 1/2 or 9, but these particular black shoes are an 8 1/2 and fit me really well so I took them. They are really cute and I think they will remind me of her and her cute style when I see them. I also took some of her CDs and board games. I think it'll remind me of the good times we've had together playing games. And also, her and I had really similar music tastes, so I will enjoy listening to her CDs. I found one CD that was a recording that she somehow got online of one of the John Mayer concerts that we went to TOGETHER. That will be a great memory and a fun thing to listen to! I also found the bridesmaid dress she wore at my wedding, so I took that home with me as well.

I spent about 4 hours there playing with Norah and talking to all of Carrisa's family and friends. Even though it was a difficult time, it was an over all good experience. I'm glad I got to play with Norah. She and I went outside and played with rocks. It reminded me about how Carrisa always used to always tell me how when she was a little kid she liked to explore outside and find bugs. haha! Norah reminds me of Carrisa's baby pictures and I think she has a similar personality. It was a really sweet time. Nae and Ashley showed up a couple of hours after I got there, and Lucy and Nory got to play together. They are SO cute. Poor little chubby Nory is starting to outweigh all of her friends! haha!

Around 6 we all left Carrisa's house (probably for the last time), and had girls night together at Carla's house. We made kabobs and they were DELICIOUS! Then we decided we needed to ruin our healthy dinner by visiting Gelayo. YUM! Jessica had to leave to go to a friend's birthday party, but she ended up not being able to find the house. Lucky for us because we got to hang out with her that night instead. Wheeee! After Gelayo we all went hot tubbin'. We had a really wonderful time together. After all that, Ashley and I went home and that night Adam & Ashley (and Lucy) stayed the night. We all stayed up til after 1 watching SNL and chatting.

On Sunday morning, the boys stayed home and Ashley and I went to church together. We sat with her family, and afterwards we went to lunch with her family and some other friends. Her sister Catherine (and husband Joe) are moving to So-Cal because Catherine accepted a job working at DISNEY LAND!!! It was kind of a "bye-for-now" lunch for the Cruz's. We had a good time, and the couple got to say goodbye (or, "bye-for-now") to their friends and family. I know they are going to be very blessed during this new chapter of their lives! But, I know it has to be hard to leave. Church was great, too. Carrisa's mom got a chance to talk up front and thank the church family for accepting Carrisa and Norah and for helping shape their lives. It was a blessing to hear her talk, even though it made me cry.

I decided a few weeks ago that I wanted to reach out to Carrisa's brother Jordan somehow. I thought he might have fun hanging out with Ryan since they have a few similar interests - one of them being SPORTS - so I invited him over for football. We also invited all of the guys (& Carla and Ashley). So after church & lunch everyone came over and watched football. Even though I hate football and maybe watched a total of 5 mins of both games, it was really fun to have everyone together! We really liked having Jordan's company. We all piled on our new-to-us sectional couch and watched the game and looked at awkardfamilyphotos . com. It was a blast. I think Jordan had a good time, too, and seemed comfortable with our group. Between games a bunch of us headed over to Gelayo... AGAIN. mmmmmmm!

After everyone left, Ryan and I were really tired so we went to bed between 9:30 and 10. Usually one of us is talkative, and the other isn't (and our mood never matches at night), but last night in particular, we were both in a talkative mood. We ended up chatting and joking around until midnight! I'm really tired today, but it was fun to be all BFF-y with my husband. :)

We don't always do much on the weekend so it was just such a blessing to be with friends the entire time. Carrisa's presence was DEFINITELY missed and there was a bit of an emptiness in the midst of all of the great company. But mixed in with all of the sadness and emptiness, I can't help but feel happy, too. I'm just so happy that Carrisa is whole now. She doesn't have to worry about all of the STUFF that goes on in this world. She is no longer concerned with her health, mommy-worries, work stuff, relationships... EVERYTHING. How can I not be happy that my best friend doesn't have to be concerned with all of that? I miss her SO much, and it hits me at different times in different ways that I'm really never going to see her again on this earth. But, I think God has really given me a peace about everything, and that has been a huge blessing.

Maui

2011-01-16T16:43:00.001-08:00

I realized that I never blogged about our trip to MAUI! OH. MY. GOSH. It was AMAZING! We had such a fun time. We flew to Maui in November (2 days after Thanksgiving), rented a car and stayed there for 5 nights. We stayed at the Royal Lahaina Resort. I really liked our room. We had a view of the ocean and the hotel is pretty much ON the beach. You just have to take an elevator down to the lobby, walk through their restaurant/bar and the swimming pool area and there's the BEACH! The only downside was no free wifi in the rooms. What is up with that? BIG MISTAKE! Oh well.

(view from our room)

When we first got there we were VERY tired from waking up so early and going to bed late the night before. One of the first things we did was take a nap. We woke up around 5pm-ish (Hawaii time), which was also about the time the sun was about to set. We walked down and checked out our beach and watched the sunset. It was soooo beautiful! We got really excited for the week ahead of us. We splashed our feet in the water and took a few pictures, and then took a walk down the beach before getting dinner. We enjoyed a sunset and walk on the beach almost every night we were there.

Early in the week we visited the "Maui Ocean Center". It was fun! I like that sort of thing, and Ryan enjoyed himself too, but I think it would be a fun place to go with kids. It seemed like something that James would love. We saw all kinds of fish, jelly fish, ocean creatures, sharks, turtles! It was cool. After we went to the Ocean Center, we drove a little ways out of the way to have dinner together at a Mexican food place that we read about in our book "Maui Revealed". It was SOOO good! There was a beach over there that looked fun, but more crowded than ours.

One morning we drove over to another beach where we went PARASAILING. It was AMAZING! It was probably our favorite part of the trip. It was kind of scary at first but once we were up there it kind of just felt like you were on a ski lift or something (but a REALLY high one!) There was a great view from up there. We saw all of the water, the mountains, and the fancy hotels from up there. SO MUCH FUN! The even dipped us into the water at one point! Afterward, we ate at a restaurant called Lelani's which had a great view of the beach. (That's also where we tried HULA PIE for the first time... Oreo crust. Vanilla ice cream. Macadamia nuts. YUM!

Another really fun thing that we did was we drove about 30 mins over to a natural blowhole. It's basically a big hole in the ground, and ocean waves come up under it and cause a huge spray of water. You have to hike down a little bit to get right by the blowhole, but it's also a really cool view from on top of the mountain. We decided to hike all the way down to it. It's not a bad hike at all, but I planned ahead with tennis shoes. You can go right up to the blowhole if you want to, but it's not all that safe to get too close because you could fall in and you'd probably die. I got about 3 feet away and would run away every time it spit out water. Ryan stayed back about 10 or 12 feet because you'd literally get SOAKED if you got any closer than that. I was as soaked as I would be if I had gone swimming under water. Haha. It was really, really fun. The drive there and back was also kinda cool because it looked more "rainforest-y" than the section of Maui that we stayed in. I don't think Ryan enjoyed driving on those tiny, windy roads! I made sure to grab our camera before we left. Unfortunately, I left the battery charging in the room sooo... yeah... I didn't get any pictures which I'm VERY bummed about!!!

Throughout the week we had a few other fun adventures. We bought some cheapy snorkel gear and went exploring in the ocean in front of our hotel. We didn't see any fish for a long time, but we were looking in the wrong place. Finally when we got tired and were headed back to the shore, we found a TON of fish! They were sooo pretty. It was really cool. Then we saw a SEA TURTLE just below us! Ryan claims it tried to chase and kill him. His boss who is an avid scuba diver told him that a sea turtle is about as agressive as a bunny. Still, he swears the turtle had red eyes and a severed human head in his "claw". Ummm. Okay. Still, we got nervous and swam away. haha! We saw Cirque De Polynesia show which was cool and weird all at once. They performers did some really cool tricks & stunts. There were some talented musicians. Although, the drummer looked like he was trying to look like Michael Jackson so I was obviously pretty frightened. We didn't get pulled up on stage, so that was good. :) We did a little bit of shopping on "Front Street" and visited a few of the ABC stores which are on almost every corner. They have some cheap, fun stuff and some suvioneer stuff too. On Front St, we found a cool restaurant that we ended up eating at a second time. It was called Cool Cat Cafe. YUM! It was tasty, affordable, and there was sometimes live music and a view of the famous Banyan tree.

We got a lot of rest, relaxation, good food and FUN adventures while we were there. It was awesome. The weather was perfect. I kind of wanted to MOVE there by our second day there. :) It was hard to leave!!!

(no, I don't know why I have a comb-over)

I'll be wearing white...

2011-01-11T21:16:00.000-08:00

(I typed out this post yesterday but didn't get to finish it and post it until today.)

Today is the 11th which means it's been exactly one month since Carrisa's passing. Gosh, I MISS HER! It's weird; it's like I was doing better the week after she died than I'm doing now. It's been hard for me to look at pictures of her for some reason. When we first went through pictures a few days after she passed away, it was actually kind of fun. It was cool to look back on old pictures and to see all of the fun times we had together. Lately, for some reason, I get sad when I see her face in pictures. I guess I'm finally realizing that it is all I have left. The only time I can see her face now here on earth is in pictures and memories.

Anyway, I've been wanting to blog about a song that was performed at Carrisa's memorial service. It's called If I Die Young, by The Band Perry. The song is very nice and some of the lines REALLY stood out to me. I'm going to put the lyrics here and highlight the ones that stand out to me and talk about them underneath. :)

If I die young, bury me in satin
Lay me down on a bed of roses
Sink me in the river at dawn
Send me away with the words of a love song

Lord make me a rainbow, I'll shine down on my mother
She'll know I'm safe with you when she stand under my colors
oh and, life ain't always what you think it oughtta be
Aint even grey but she buries her baby
Oh my gosh, I can't even begin to express the pain I have in my heart for Carrisa's mother, Laurie. She is SUCH a strong woman and gives all of the credit to God. She has been through so much. Carrisa is actually the SECOND child she'll be "burying" (in addition to her husband and parents). I hope she feels the presence of God each time she remembers Carrisa.

The sharp knife of a short life, well,
I've had just enough time
I really believe that Carrisa had just enough time here on earth. I know it sounds weird because she was so young. And in our minds there were things that she "never accomplished" such as getting married, living into old age, watching her daughter get married. But, God had a plan for her life and once it was accomplished it was time to take her back home to Him. I don't know the exact purpose of her life was, but I've had a few glimpses. :)

(Chorus)

And I'll be wearing white when I come into your kingdom
I'm as green as the ring on my little, cold finger
I've never known the lovin' of a man
but it sure felt nice when he was holding my hand
My favorite line in the song is about how she'll be wearing white when she enters into God's kingdom. Wow, what a BEAUTIFUL picture! I thought of Carrisa in the following lines, too. She never fell in love and got married. It was something I wanted for her so badly. I didn't want her to settle, because I knew how happy I was being married to my best friend. I wanted the same for her. While we planned her memorial service, sometimes it felt like we were planning her wedding. In fact, Carla kept accidentally calling it her wedding. You know what, it really WAS like a wedding ceremony for her. She is now "THE BRIDE OF CHRIST". She is now whole. She is now experiencing way more love than she could've ever experienced here on earth. I never got to be a bridesmaid in her wedding. I think speaking at her memorial right after her mom was such an honor. The way her family treated me as one of their own on the night Carrisa passed, inviting me in to see her and say goodbye along with them. I don't know, it has just been such a blessing to be a part of Carrisa's life. Even though I didn't get to be her bridesmaid, to picture her in a beautiful white flowing dress as she walks into God's presence is an even bigger blessing!
There's a boy here in town says he'll love me forever
Who would've thought forever could be severed by
The sharp knife of a short life, well,
The part that stands out to me first of all are the words "Who would've thought". Because, who would've thought this could happen? We go about our lives thinking it could never happen to us, and then out of nowhere, it does. And then the second part. Wow, it describes the feeling so well. It does feel like a severing. She was here and then suddenly she was gone. And it does feel like a sharp knife. A really, really sharp one sometimes.
I've had just enough time

So put on your best boys and I'll wear my pearls
What I never did is done
all the things we wished for her future... it's all done. And really, I think that's okay. :)

A penny for my thoughts, oh no, I'll sell them for a dollar
they're worth so much more after I'm a gonner
And maybe then you'll hear the words I've been singin'
Funny when you're dead how people start listening
I have seen lives change before my eyes since Carrisa's death. I think it's based on things she said and did before she died, but we finally started listening after she was gone.

(Chorus)

The ballad of a dove
Go with peace and love
I miss her so badly. I know she's at peace though. That brings me joy. :)
Gather up your tears, keep 'em in your pocket
Save them for a time when you're really gonna need them

The sharp knife of a short life, well,
I've had just enough time

So put on your best boys and I'll wear my pearls...

Shoebox of letters

2011-01-01T21:47:00.000-08:00

I'm over at my parents' house tonight taking care of Lance while they get a break (24 hours isn't exactly a GOOD break, but a break nonetheless). Usually when I'm here I get a chance to think or reflect or something like that. I think it's because their cable SUCKS. In other words, fewer distractions. Well, I figured I might be bored here because I wouldn't have Ryan to bug, Lance goes to bed early, and again, my parent's cable SUCKS! So, I tossed Modern Family season 1 in my bag as my boredom-safety-net, but I also grabbed a shoebox that has been sitting in my living room for a few weeks now. You see, I don't really hang onto things too often. Yes, I let junk pile up for SURE, but when I go through things I don't have too hard of a time letting go. I do keep pictures though. The day after Carrisa passed, we busted out a big box of pictures that I hadn't gone through in YEARS. We wanted to find old pictures for the slideshow for her service. Looking through all of our pictures was SO much fun! Well, sad and fun all at once. You know? Anyway, at the bottom of all of the pictures, there was a shoebox. I figured there were more pictures in it. NOPE! OLD LETTERS! Old letters? It just didn't seem like something I would hold on to! But I did. And I'm glad. :)

I didn't really have the energy to go through all of the letters. I knew once I started I would want to pretty much go through all of them. So the box has been sitting in my living room until earlier today. I knew I'd have time on my hands tonight, and thank God for that. After Lance and I ate dinner, Lance went downstairs to play games and watch TV, and I got to have hours alone with my shoebox of letters. For some reason, I thought that going through them would be like, some kind of cry-fest. I don't know why I thought the whole box would be a bunch of lovey-dovey letters from Carrisa or something like that. Instead, it was a big box of humor and memories! I didn't even cry (YET)! I sure laughed a lot, though! The shoebox was almost like a Time Machine. :) I thought I was getting close to finishing up all of the letters but I realized I was probably less than half done when I decided it was time for an "internet break".

The letters are mostly from Carrisa and my cousin Jessica. My two best friends in High School. :) Most of the letters are from high school (and even a few from 8th grade, I think), and most of them were written while someone was bored in class. They were so "every-day". Now-a-days (how old do I sound?!), the "every-day" stuff is just posted on facebook, and the "real" letters people get are usually via email; not handwritten. The letters from the box were glimpses and memories of my best friends' daily lives, their classes, their crushes, their thoughts, their homelife... They are so much fun to read! Besides the hundred-ish letters from Carrisa and Jess, there are some from Jessica (Jackson, then Haaker), a few from old highschool friends, a couple from Adam, one from Teryn, and even a few from Lynae, some from when she spent time living in Missouri. :) I didn't expect any from Nae. I kind of forgot we ever wrote any letters to each other! There's even one randomly from Lance. I even found a few letters from myself that were either journal entries or letters to Carrisa that I never gave to her, and also the letter they had us write Freshman year to our "Senior Self" (they saved them and gave them to us a few days before graduation or something like that).

I'd say almost 70% of the letters were from Carrisa. I'm just so glad I have them! None of them are exceptionally "special" by themselves, but as a whole, they're kind of a treasure. It is fun to look back on our friendship. We were SO SILLY. You don't even know. Or, if you knew us then, maybe you KIND OF know... but still... you don't even KNOW! Haha. First of all, the letters are SO confusing because we had nicknames for everyonnnne and I can't remember who most of them are (SHE would remember every single one!). Also, in highschool it was like a sin to write in regular blue/black ink or something... they were all in light PINK, blue, silver, or purple pretty pens. Or they were in pencil because they were written in math class. And, we kind of made up words, too. (In summary, they were really hard to read!) We were so silly. We had SO much fun together. We were boy-crazy, aparently! Most of her letters were about how bored she was in class, what we were going to do that weekend or at YoungLife, some cute boy (or "fine" back then), how we need a ride here and there because we didn't have our licences yet...

I don't know. I can't explain what it was like looking back. All I know is it made me happy. I will post peices of the letters when I get the chance. (After I space out on facebook for a while, I'm going to try to go and read the rest... it's seriously taking HOURS!) I will scan up bits and pieces or I will type them out. It's fun to see her handwriting though (not to mention the pictures we drew).

I really think hand-written letters (or just LETTERS in general... not facebook updates) are REALLY cool. I wish we all did that still. It didn't matter back then that I was going to see Carrisa the very next hour, or later that night, or that I lived in the same house as Lynae. We wrote to each other anyway. It didn't have to be anything special. There didn't have to be a "reason". It was just about our life & thoughts. It was about asking advice from each other. It was about telling a funny story while we were thinking of it. It was a part of an ongoing conversation, written down so that we could hold on to it, directed especially to one person. So... I'll be checking my mail, guys! :)

Creasy

2010-12-19T15:51:00.001-08:00

My best friend Carrisa went to be with the Lord last Saturday, December 11th, 2010. I miss her so much, but I am so happy that she is with her Savior now (and her big bro and dad, too).

I just wanted to post my speech from her beautiful memorial for you all to read again if you'd like. :) (I strayed a bit from my "script", but this is what I had typed out in front of me that day).

________

Carrisa was my best friend. We were 6 and 7 years old when we met. She's the one who had the great memory, not me. In fact, she remembers the day we met, and this year on October 25th she emailed me to jokingly wish me a "Happy 18th Anniversary". One thing I do remember is the first time I went to her house to play. We played a silly game of make believe in her back yard. I got to meet her huge family. I didn't know it would be the beginning of a rare type of friendship that a lot of people never get to experience.

We were basically inseperable since that day. We were in the same class all through elementary school and the same program for Jr. High School. In High school we got to choose our own classes, so of course we took almost all of the same ones. Even in college we were attached at the hip.

I have shared almost all of my life experiences with her. We grew up together. She was a sister to me. We went through everything together. I hugged her tight when she lost her brother 13 years ago. She loved my brother even when others didn't know how.

We eventually grew out of backyard make believe into things like boys, music, and individual interests. In High School we both became interested in YoungLife and our friendship deepend even more. We went on countless trips together to Woodleaf, mission trips to Mexico, and camping. We had a tight knit group of AWESOME friends who held us accountable in our Christian faith. Many of these friends had the privilege of being with her in her final moments here on earth.

After High School, we decided we'd move out of our parents' houses and into "adulthood". We were able to spend a year as roommates along with our friend Meghan. I think we knew that being roommates would be a test of our friendship, and we came out the other side of that realizing that we were more like family than just friends. We realized we could get through anything together, even if it was something that was really difficult for a while.

Carrisa stood next to me as my maid of honor on my wedding day. She held my bouquet while I shared vows with the love of my life. A few years later, I sat in the next room as she delivered the love of her life, Norah Olivia. After thousands of memories shared, we got to share the biggest, most important moments of our lives with each other.

Carrisa was such an amazing friend, not just to me but to everyone she knew. She invested time and love into so many people. She loved planning parties and playing games. She loved serving others. She was rarely seen without a smile on her face.

Most of all, she was an amazing Mother. She only got to spend 18 months with Norah, but she poured a lifetime of love into her. We want Norah to know her Mommy so we all need to tell her about Carrisa when she's old enough. We want her to know how much her Mommy loved her.

This week has been full of every emotion I could ever imagine. I have been so sad that my sister is gone. I have been grieving about events that haven't even happened yet that we're going to wish she was here for. I have been in disbelief that this is even real.

I have also experienced a joy and peace that could only come from God. Carrisa accepted Jesus into her heart at a very young age, and she kept that faith through the end of her life here on earth. I truly believe that she is now in heaven with her Savior. That is where the joy comes from. I know she is free of pain and worries and other earthly concerns. I also know she is planning a heck of a party for Jesus' birthday! I will miss her so much. Thank you, Carrisa, for sharing your life with me!

________

Also, as we went through our pics to find some for the slideshow, I came across this note. It pretty much sums us up. :)

My Birthday is Tomorrow!

2010-11-12T23:50:00.000-08:00

My birthday is tomorrow (which is technically in only a few minutes now!) We're going to have our friends over and hang out, eat dinner and cake, and hopefully have a good time! Pretty much since after my 21st birthday, I've felt kind of "old" to be having birthday parties, so I tend to procrastinate on planning something for myself. I just decided to have my party (which is tomorrow) a couple of days ago. So, I don't really have much planned and my house is still a mess and it's almost midnight! Oh well, it will be fun anyway (I hope!)

Today at work we had CHEESECAKE to celebrate my birthday. It was deeeeelish. (It was from Upper Crust and it was Cheesecake, so there was pretty much no way it could go wrong). :) It's been a BIT hard doing my diet this week since we went out to Chili's with Tammy for my birthday last night (I had a big ol' burger, and later she had an ice cream cake for me), today we had cheesecake at work, tomorrow Carrisa is making a rainbow chip cake for my party, and next week my grandparents want to take us out for dinner. ACK! Last week I lost 3 lbs, but I'm preeeetttyyyy sure I might gain that back. Hopefully not MORE though!

Anyway, my birthday celebration started last night with dinner with Tammy and Ryan. She got me EXACTLY what I've been wanting since I started planning our Maui trip - a new digital camera! Wheee! I can't wait to use it! It's really compact and has way more megapixels than our old camera and I'm so excited to take it to Maui. This morning I was getting ready for work and I heard someone knocking at my door... I answered the door and there was Nae holding the "sassy pants" gift back and sweet little Joey holding a birthday bouquet of flowers for me! :) They were almost as big as he was, so they were kind of drooping but it was PERFECT! What a nice thing to start my day with! Nae got me a butterfly beach towel that I asked for for Maui and she ordered me some Mary Kay mascara, because I've been on the hunt for the perfect mascara! Sooo nice.

(I wish I had a picture of Joey holding them!)

When I got to work, my WBF (work-best-friend) had set up the cutest gift basket on my desk! It contained a yellow tea pot that I saw at the store when we were on our lunch break one day, a bunch of different teas, the cutest tea bag rest, some yellow dish towels for my kitchen, and a few other things. It was so cute and such a nice suprise! I love it.

Later we had cake and all of my co-workers signed a card for me. I got 50 bucks from the company as a birthday gift and my boss got me a gift, too (scarf & gloves).

So far it's been a great birthday and it's not even my birthday yet! I'm looking forward to spending time with our friends tomorrow. I always feel sooo blessed on my birthday every year. Sadly Nae & Seth already has plans so they won't be there, but that's okay! Oh yeah, I'll be 25 so... I ummm... can rent a car on my own now...? Awesommme! haha! :)

Thanks for making my Birthday so special, everyone!

Weekend at Lance's

2010-11-12T22:39:00.000-08:00

My parents spent a week in beautiful MAUI and I watched Lance for part of the time they were gone, from Friday after work until late Tuesday night. He was sooo good! He is really growing up. He has his schedule DOWN. He knows what to do and when to do it and how to do it! Haha.

He was very good, and very sweet! My parents anniversary was during their vacation. Before they left, Lance said his gift to them would be to promise to be good and that they'd get a good report from his caretakers. He did a great job of keeping his promise. Lance wakes up very, very early. Haha. He would of course want to eat breakfast right after his morning shower, so I would have to get up with him. He would wake up, take a shower, and then come in and wake me up and get started on his day. He took care of everything. He made coffee every morning, and made my coffee special by adding a sprinkle of cinnamon and sugar to it. :) On Saturday we went to Chico and hung out at my house because I had a bunch of laundry to do and I didn't really pack for more than one night at my parents. Lance was VERY excited to play Ryan's Xbox360 while he was gone. Here is Lance carefully looking through alllll of Ryans games to see which one he should start with first!

I got three or four loads of laundry done and Lance had a blast! We also went to Subway for lunch which was of course a treat for Lance, and we were home in time for dinner. :)

Sunday we were up early again, but Lance let me "sleep in" until like 7:30 or 8! In the morning after breakfast, Lance sat on the couch and drank his coffee and read Oswald Chambers and then opened up my dad's bible to look for a verse that my dad told him before they left on their trip. For a while he couldn't find it and he was getting pretty frustrated. Eventually he found it and read it over and over until he memorized it. :) After thinking about how he got frustrated he said "Lynds... when God brings you to the bible, he doesn't want you to get frustrated. He wants you to have patience!" Haha. He's so cute. The verse he memorized was, Psalm 37:4, "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." Here's Lance doing his studies :)

We went to church and got to see the boys. :) We spent some time at my parents, and Lance played his rented video game. Then we went to bible study at Lynae's and Lance helped with the kids and played on Nae's computer. It was so great to spend time with the boys. James watched a Veggie Tales movie with the Wion girls. He was a little bit scared because there was a big "Rock Monster" in it and I saw him close his eyes a few times but he didn't cry. :) He was brave!

The next two days we were up very early again because Lance had school starting at 7:30 one day and 8:30 the next. After school Lance went STRAIGHT to working on his math homework. He's been doing long division, which, I'm embarassed to admit that I don't really remember how to do all the way! I felt really stupid when he was asking me questions! haha. I had to tell him how smart he was and how proud of him he was. I also told him that it's really smart of him to work on his homework right away instead of procrastinating. While he worked on his homework, I worked on making my magnets that I hope to sell on Etsy in the future. These ones were sort of a trial run. The little pictures were really cute but the glass bubbles I bought are not very clear and sort of distort some of the pictures. I found some crystal clear bubbles online so I'm going to have to get my hands on those before I start selling.

Here is Lance hard at work on his math homework and below that is a picture of my magnets! :)

My parents got home at almost midnight on Tuesday night and they looked very happy and very tan! I have only heard about bits and pieces of their trip, and I can't wait to hear more! Overall, Lance was nearly PERFECT and I had a great time hanging out with him. I don't see him very much and it was nice to have a pleasant time with him. I am very proud of him. I am so glad that my parents had a nice break and a truly wonderful vacation. They're both saying that it's by far the best vacation they've been on. And I think Lance's good behavior (and not to mention WEIGHT LOSS!) was really the icing on the cake. On Tuesday after school we went to Safeway and Lance picked out flowers for my mom and we got a jumbo beer for my dad as well as a card for the two of them for their anniversary. Hopefully coming back to that, and the good report that Lance promised, made their anniversary week perfect! :)

I like...

2010-10-16T12:34:00.000-07:00

k, so I love love love this clip! It's sooo cute and funny. haha.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR3rK0kZFkg

Sometimes I wish I can be like her! Sometimes I do make a running list in my head of all of the things I love, which "My boys" (not the show - Rynie, James & Joey) usually tops my list. They're the best! BUT, I wish I could be like her every day because more often than not, I usually have a running list of things I DON'T like running through my head instead. God has blessed me with sooooo much to be thankful for, and I really, really shouldn't take that stuff for granted as often as I do. So, I guess I'll make my "I Like" list now!

I like my Ryan
I like my James
I like my Joey
I like my whole family
I like my paycheck
I like Ryan's paycheck even more
I LIKE MY WHOLE HOUSE! (CLAP!)
I like my couch
I like my pillows
I like my church family
I like babies
I like my FRIENDS
I like my work friends
I like my work doggies
I like my marriage
I like my weekends
I like my Savior
I like His promises
I like my future kids
I like my TV
I like all my shows
I like movies
I like the sunshine
I like buying little presents for my boys
I like leaving love notes in Ryan's drawer
I like my house stuff from Ross
I like my clean water supply
I like my Mexico family
I like my computer
I like my friends' kids
I like my Facebook
I like my Amazon.com & Ebay.com and Etsy.com
I like my Lyme prayer group
I like getting flowers
I like my birthday
I like Christmas
I like loving others
I like hugging my boys til they wiggle away from me
I like pictures that have captured great moments :)

I could go on foreverrrrrrr, so I guess I should stop for now. It feels so good to count my blessings! Thank you, God, for EVERYTHING you've given to me... above and beyond what I could have ever imagined.

Now I want to say something that I like - at least one thing - about the people I love (and they thankfully love me back, too!) In no particular order, by the way!

Rynie:
of course I could list a million things, but I'll try to keep it to a few. He's my BEST FRIEND. We laugh, argue, love, and live life together and I love every second of it. He mirrors God in that he's my provider and protector and he loves me unconditionally.

Jamesie:
What a special little boy he is! I've always told Ryan that we have a "special bond". He is an inspiration to me; he is joyful in situations that I would go crawl in a hole, but he keeps on dancing and smiling. He is a sweetheart and a snuggler. He is a comedian and adorable and loving as can be. I love his sweet face, his sweet kisses, and his beautiful spirit!

Nae:
God has blessed me with a wonderful friend who also happens to be my sister. :) She is a strong woman, a wonderful mother, a Godly example, a fun friend, a lover of beautiful things. She loves others in many ways, and has always been a great big sis for me to look up to.

Joeypie:
Sweet and flirtatious, playful, loves music and dancing, wild, and cute as can be! I love making farties on his neck and forcing kisses upon him. I love watching him dance, eat, sleep, everything! He's precious and full of energy!

Mom & Dad:
Very strong parents and great friends. They both work harder than anyone I know. My mom gives all of her strength and love to her children. My dad finds joy in giving words of encouragement and telling his girls how beautiful they are. They LOVE their grandchildren. :) They are wise and strong and have put all their trust in Him who has sustained them the past 30 years!

Creasy and Nory:
Carrisa has always been a wonderful and very giving friend to me. We've been through it all, pretty much, and we still love each other and consider each other Family. She is very generous, fun-loving, a great mommy, and loves to par-tay! I can go to her with my joys and my sorrows and she can understand them both. Nory is a sweet bundle of FUN. I love how she is not shy with others. I love her dance moves and the little words she's starting to say. I love to hold her and kiss her and tickle her. She loves her mama and her mama loves her! She is playful and as sweet as can be!

Seth:
He is hard-working and a great leader to his family. He puts all of his energy into what he does and likes it all to be perfect. :) He is generous with his time and service to others. He is energetic and loves meeting new people and talking it up with old friends, too. He loves his wifey and his sweet boys and has always kept his faith strong in the Lord who has sustained him and his family for many years.

Tammy:
She is so generous and hard working. She has done a wonderful job raising her children. She is very loving and likes to show her love through quality time and gift giving. She has taught Ryan very valuable things and he is a wonderful man because of the great family he had growing up. She loves her son with her whole heart, and is very protective of her family and friends.

Jessica & Dusty:
They have both been friends of ours for EVER. Jessica is loyal and honest. She has a great sense of humor and a drive to succeed. She really gives it her all in whatever is set before her in life. She is inspiring in how hard she works and how well she cares for others. She seems very close to her family and loves her friends. She makes an effort to keep her relationships strong. I appreciate what a great friend she's been to me for many, many years and still counting! Dustin is a very unique friend and I feel blessed to have him in our lives. He brings a lot of humor to our lives (often disgusting, but funny nonetheless!), and I hate to love him / love to hate him! Haha! He is a jokester and is as boy-ish as can be. Deep down he is a very loyal friend and actually a very loving person! If he says "I hate you!" it really means "I love you"!!! He has always been there for us and his friends when we needed him. When James was born and they lived in Sacramento, Dustin and Jessica were a great support to Nae & Seth. When we bought our house, Dustin helped us paint and move for hours and did a great job, too! He is hardworking and is very loyal to his friendships.

Carla & Tones:
Tones is also a unique friend and I love that he is great friends with Ryan. He has a drive to do well in anything he is involved in; work, friendships, writing, games. He is also a loyal friend (we have a lot of these!) and loves his wife and doggies very much! He has a sense of humor and loves playing games. Carla is such a servant and loves to love others! I always have fun with her whether we're shopping, seeing a movie, or just hanging out with the girls. She loves her husband and her friends, and gives her best in all that she does. I feel very loved and encouraged by her!

Adam & Ashley (And lil Lucy, too!)
We love these dear friends and wish they lived closer! They are brave and aren't scared to move, meet new people, try new things, take different jobs, and just LIVE LIFE. Adam has been friends of ours, especially Ryan's, for years and years. He has always been a great friend to both of us, and Ryan loves that he shares the same interests as him... mostly SPORTS! :) He is smart and works very hard and loves his family very much! Ashley is so pleasant to be around. She is funny, so sweet, and so easy going. I loved visiting her this summer and getting to spend time with just her and Lucy without our boys. :) She loves her family, too, and is so good at loving others!

Lance:
Another inspiration in my life; he knows he is blessed and works hard to be a good boy even when it's hard. He is blind to other people's faults and just loves them unconditionally. He is a wonderful uncle to his boys! He loves his doggie and his Best Friend, his Dad. :) He is very loving and social and likes to bless others. He is an artist! He likes to learn new things like guitar and different types of P.E. like jujitsu and stuff like that. Some times may have been difficult growing up, but I am so thankful that I've had him in my life to help me learn patience and unconditional love, as well as accepting people who are "Different". :)

Teryn:
She has been SUCH a blessing in our lives, starting with Nae and then to the rest of our familiy, especially me and my mom. She LOVES her Savior and is not hesitant to soak herself in His love. She is so loving to her friends and especially her family. She is easy to talk to and will tell you like it is if she needs to, which I love. She is honest. She gives her all to her family and is a shining star of a mommy. Her boys are very loving and snuggly, and fun-loving and energetic! I love to see Lexi's smile! Daniel is a wonderful leader to his family and does a great job of loving on them. He has so much in common with Ryan and I wish they lived here so they could be BFFs!!!

Robin:
My WBF (work best friend)! She saves me from being stuck with just the stinky boys and my boss! She lets me vent and talk about everything that stresses me out, and understands all of it. She is so much fun to talk to and hang out with. I love our walks, and IMing from 5 feet away and talking crap and making jokes. She loves her friends and family and, again, is very loyal to her relationships. She is hard-working and takes her job seriously. She doesn't put up with BS. She knows where to find great deals. She has a great husband who just adores her and he, like Seth, loves meeting new people. He doesn't take anyone's BS either! I'm very blessed to have Robin in my life, and have someone pleasant to talk to each work day!

Housewarming Party

2010-10-02T22:03:00.001-07:00

We finally got around to having our housewarming party! This one was just family... we decided to have a separate family party since having everyone at once would be WAY too many people. There were 14 of us tonight counting us and also counting James & Joey. We planned this party for two weeks ago but I got a stomach bug the day before and had to cancel. :( But this time I was feeling much better. We had everyone come over at 7 and instead of having a whole meal or something, we just had ice cream sundaes. It was so yummy! I just bought a big tub of vanilla ice cream and then we had hot fudge, caramel sauce, nuts, cherries, crushed up oreos, mini m&ms, whipped cream and SPRINKLES! :) I think everyone enjoyed it. I bought some low-fat vanilla for Lance and my mom picked which toppings were appropriate for him. My mom also brought James some dairy free chocolate pudding (his fav) so that he didn't feel left out. He was sooo cute. So was Joey. Joey ran around our house screaming and laughing and being stinkin' cute. James soaked in all the love he got from me and all of the grandparents and great grandparents and everyone else. He's such a sweetie and he brings so much joy to my heart!

So we cleaned the house like crazy the last few days. It was a lot of work but I'm glad that we were kinda forced to clean everything at once and make everything look nice. Ryan helped me a lot and I was sooo thankful for his help. I really want it to stay clean and looking nice but we're doubting that it'll even be this way for 24 hours. haha! We have no one to blame, either, since we don't have any kids yet. But whatever. I also hung a few pictures and things like that to spruce up the house. I'm glad I had something to motivate me to do that, too. We also finally moved the treadmill and exercise bike out of the garage into our exercise room. Right now our house looks GREAT! Let's hope it lasts. I went around taking a bunch of pictures after everyone left (I should've taken a few more while people were HERE, but oh well.) Oh, we also found a couch on Craigslist and went to look at it on Thursday. We decided that we liked it a lot and it was a good deal so we picked it up today about 5 hours before the party. We LOVE it! It's a sectional type of couch so the main couch and the loveseat are connected, and this one also has a chaise lounge connected, too. It's exactly what we were looking for! Now we can relax on the couch and not be in each other's way. Also, tonight there was totally enough seating since about 6 people can fit on the couch comfortably, and you could fit 7 if you want to be pretty snuggly with your couch-mates. Our new area rug looked weird for some reason with the new couch so we moved it into our dining room under the dining table. I really like it in there! I think it'll look even better if/when we get a new table. Especially if we get it in a dark brown stain like we want.

Here are some pictures of our place:

(I used my cell phone camera so some of the pics aren't very awesome)

Our awesome new-to-us couch! (I claimed the chaise area for myself)

My parents got us this new table lamp that was on our "wishlist". :) So pretty!

Since we got the couch today, we didn't know what to do with our old one, so we put it in the extra room behind our kitchen near the back yard and now we have a 2nd "living room". I need to put our couch cover back on cuz that plaid-ness is pretty uggo. If you know anyone who wants to buy this or maybe just have it for free, let me know. I guess they guys had to take our door off to get it into our house so it'll be a bit of a hassle to get it out of here and into someone else's house. It's HUGE! And with the couch cover it's not so ugly. If you take the back blue pillows off it's seriously like the size of a twin bed.

Here's our bedroom with the bedding that I LOVE and some new paintings I got from Ross.

Here are the flower paintings up close. They match our room sooo well.

My dad came over the other day and hung our new black mirror in our black-and-white themed bathroom. I love it! (Still very in love with my shower curtain, too!)

This is our exercise room. treadmill, stationary bike, TV, and weighted hoola-hoop. I also have a stability ball I need to blow up and a couple of resistance bands and 5 lb weights. I hope we actually make use of this room. We definitely need to especially if we're going to Hawaii in November!!!

I decided to just get some off-white sheer curtains that will match anything. These ones were from Ross and were only like 8.99 for the two panels and the "scarf" that goes along the top. I got 3 so i only spent like under 30 bucks to cover 3 windows. :) Yay!

This is our little accent table from Target, and the wooden decorative square peices are also from, you guessed it, ROSS! What, am I Carla??! I'm JUST now realizing how much stuff we have from there. I at least got these like 3 years ago so I didn't just go on a Ross shopping spree all at once. hahaha!

This was a wedding gift from Carrisa - it's a black and white picture with two simple flowers. I really like it. It looks great in our hallway. I would hang it in our black and white bathroom but I think it's too big. I think it looks really nice where it is.

That's it! I hope you enjoyed the pics! We had a great party and I'm so, so thankful that we have such a loving family surrounding us, and such a great house too!

Things are coolin' down

2010-09-18T13:38:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted, and I've been putting it off even LONGER because I knew it'd have to be a pretty big post to cover everything. The four main things that went on since I posted last was Mexico, Ryan's bday party, some pretty life-changing health issues with James, and finding out that Nae is pregnant again! Wheee!

They pretty much started to share the news right away and I was one of the first people to know, since I was in the other room while she told Seth. A few minutes later, they came in and told me, and then we told James. He got the cutest smile on his face. :) Then we took James over to grandma & grandpas and he told them "Guess what? Mommy has a new baby in her tummy", and he told uncle Lance, and then we went over to tell "Great Grams" & "Bestifar". Everyone was VERY surprised - including Nae & Seth. :) But we're sooo very excited. We're all hoping for a girl. Nae will find out if it's a boy or a girl before this year ends (late Nov / early Dec?). She (or he) is the miracle we have been praying for...

As you pretty much all know by now, James has had some pretty scary health issues lately. I won't go into all of the details since you probably already know (and they're outlined in Lynae's blog, lynaesthoughts.blogspot.com). But basically he's lost a lot of his strength and mobility and it has changed his life and the lives of his family members. We all had lots and lots of tears while he was in the hospital with these new developments. It's still very sad to see him try to sift through the emotions of dealing with his loss of body function at such a young age. But gosh, he is such an amazing little guy. He still bobs his head and "dances" to music. He still has a big smile on his face when we spend time with him. He says things like "I'll be right back, I'm gonna go [do this or that]". And then we bring him to go do whatever it is that he wants to do... go get a book, go hug his brother, etc. He's so, sooooo, soooo special to me. Please join me in praying for him each time you think of him or his family. He needs healing, hope, and help sorting through his emotions. He's been very emotional, which I can only imagine is caused by constantly realizing over and over again that he can't move his arm, or crawl over to his room, or play on the computer, or do what he used to be able to do a month ago. I pray that God will give him (and his parents) peace during this time, and that the doctors will be able to find a solution for what's going on with him. He's the love of all of our lives, and it deeply saddens us to see him this way. Thank you for your prayers, everyone.

*****

So, Ryan's bday party seems like forever ago now, but we had a GREAT time! He spent weeks drafting up trivia questions for a "Game Show". Basically, each category has a different subject such as "sports", "my friends" (ryan's friends), "video game characters", a bunch of different TV shows, etc. Then each category would have like 5 or 6 questions under it. There are two teams of 3 people. One person from each team goes up and challenges each other in a certain category. Whoever gets the least amount of questions correct in that category is eliminated, until an entire team is eliminated. The questions were fun, creative, and awesome! I was so proud to see Ryan really get into something and have such a fun time being so creative.

Ryan made everyone wear a paper bag on their head that said something funny when they got eliminated. Joey and Nory came, too, and had a great time playing together and trying to get into trouble by pushing the buttons on Uncle Ryan's electronics.

Jessica made the best of it... :)

*****

Mexico was A-MAZ-ING! I loved it sooo, sooo much. I hadn't been in a few years, and I had never been with Yugo Ministries (I went with Amor Ministries in the past). It was a different experience... We stayed in a hotel instead of camping. The house was a similar size and stuff, but a way different type... with drywall and paint and all that. In the past I've done stucco houses and they look kind of un-finished on the inside when we leave. This one looked like a real HOUSE when we left. It was so cool. The family we built for was awesome. It was a grandmother, Aurora, and her grand-daughter Marilyn. They also had close family that lived next door. We made great friendships with all of them despite the language barrier.

I'm amazed each year at how touched I am by the whole experience. I think I tend to go into it thinking "psh, i've done this 10+ times... I've got it down. Let's bust out this house, shed a tear or two, and drive home." It's just not that simple. Each experience, each family, each house, each neighborhood is different. Each year is completely life-changing. I LOVE IT. Somehow each year is also very, very different. Most years I come back on a "high" for God, I guess you could say. It's kind of like you're drowning in Church-like stuff and in God-like experiences and people, and it lasts into the weeks after you return from the trip.

This year was different. I came back sort of depressed. I don't know if depressed is the right word. But I was emotional. Part of it was that the James stuff happened soon after. But also, I made really good friendships with the family. I missed them, and I knew I might not see them for years, or maybe never again. It made me so sad to think that even with their new home, they might be cold, or dehydrated, or hungry. I prayed and prayed that God would comfort them and give them everything they need, and that they would seek Him first. I also felt a little bit depressed after coming back home, because my life felt so purpose-less. In other words, I felt like I was doing "God's work" when I was over there. I was almost envious of the people from the states that live there and work for Yugo Ministries and do God's work every day of their lives. How tiring, but how MEANINGFUL and fun and exciting. I just felt like... what am I even doing here in the states? In my big, stupid house. With my boring, pointless job. With no goals. I still don't have some kind of big "goal" for what my life should look like. BUT, I have realized (and they talked about this at church in Mexico), that basically, you don't have to be a missionary in another country, or a pastor, or a christian musician or the head of a big church ministry to be doing Gods work. Those positions are very fulfilling and I am SO thankful for the people who have been called to those positions. But I think every person can make a difference in their own lives, in their current jobs, in their current "worlds". I think that if you are in prayer that God has your life where he wants it, and that you try to live his scripture in your daily lives, that you WILL be doing "God's work"... even if it's not building a house every week for a new family. Although, it feels pretty good to do that every once in a while, I must admit. I think I just got lost over there in loving others. It felt so good, and maybe I hadn't truly done that in a while. I don't know if I'm making any sense, but those are my feelings on the situation. Please pray for my new family in Mexico whenever you think of them (or me). Thank you!

*****

I guess a few more things happened this summer, too. I took what I've been referring to as my "Crazy Trip". I was feeling kind of overwhelmed here and just felt like I needed to get out of town for just a couple of nights. I visited Ashley & Lucy overnight while Adam was camping with his father-in-law. It was so fun! We just mostly had girly time, made a great dinner and an awesome dessert... watched a chick flick, stayed up late. Went shopping in Reno. I also got to re-meet Ryan's cousin who I've only met one other time before. She's right around my age, and she happens to also live in Susanville where Adam & Ashley live. They've become good friends this past year or so after we "introduced" them via Facebook. She is a very sweet girl, and I wish we all lived closer so we could hang out more.

Anyway, after departing from Susanville, I took my "Crazy Trip" (not because the TRIP was crazy, but because I was crazy)... BY MYSELF to Truckee. I had fun being alone. It was relaxing. I basically went on the trip to relax. I got a facial/massage at one of the ski resort places nearby. I went in the hot-tub one night and even chatted with strangers (eeek!). I explored Truckee and even got to know my way around a little bit (with the help of our GPS!). I took about a 20 minute drive to a beach and had lunch and read my book while I laid in the sun. It was awesome! On the way home I took a detour to Roseville and did a little bit of shopping. It was a good trip. It's sort of weird that I went by myself, but I think I needed it. I'm a true, full-blooded introvert. Haha! So it was right down my alley.

*****

I also got Ryan tickets to a Giants game for his birthday. We just went about two weeks ago. My company was having a party in Mountain View where our other office is, which is in the Bay Area, pretty close to SF. They paid for our mileage and our first night there. Then, we drove to SF the following day and stayed the night there and went to the Giants game the next day. It was so fun! Our seats were awesome, and it was also the annual "Dog Days of Summer" so people got to bring their dogs, and there were like 800 cute doggies there! Before the game started, they paraded them around the field. It was SO cute. We had an awesome time -- and they WON! :)

Summatimmmeee and the livin's easy...

2010-07-03T12:37:00.000-07:00

More like BUSY! This summer we've already bought, painted, and moved into our new house and I took a 4 day trip to Oregon with Lynae and Joey. In just THREE WEEKS I leave on a mission trip to Mexico with my dad & my church. I'm looking forward to it but I can't believe how soon it is and how unprepared I feel! As long as I have sunscreen, my meds, and a Costco sized box of thermacare heat packs, I'll be fine! :) Right after Mexico we'll probably have a party at our house so that everyone can see it. We'll probably actually have 2 different parties - one for Family and one for Friends or else I'll be overwhelmed with the amount of people at our house! Before then I need to finish unpacking this place, and then clean everything. It makes me want to buy a bunch of new stuff to put in our house and decorate our house with. Ryan won't let me. Haha! I asked him if I could spend 500 bucks, and he asked me if he could. Haha. Nahhhh. August and late July are also full of BIRTHDAYS and probably lots of parties. Ryan, Carla, Carrisa & Jessica's bdays are all within about 3 - 4 weeks of each other. Nae & Seth's anniversary is right in there, too. My boss' bday is also in early August and I'll probably have to organize getting her a cake as soon as I return back to work from Mexico.

Anyway! Oregon was way fun. I got to spend 4 days straight with my sweet Joey-pie. He's sooo cute. The car ride back seemed a bit grueling, but the way there went pretty fast. It was great to spend time with Nae (without our husbands! haha!), and see Teryn and her sweet kiddos. They're so snuggly. Chasey went to me right away and snuggled his little head against me. Caden always held my hand and gave me a running hug when I came back from wherever I was. They're both so sweet and so cute. We hiked Multnoma Falls which was beautiful (but reminded me how OUT OF SHAPE I am!), and ate lunch at their restaurant. Yummm! The kids were so good the whole time. We stayed up late and chatted, and woke up early with the cuties. We went shopping at Ikea & the mall (no sales tax! wahoooo!). We stopped here and there for Joey to play, and he would dance and find rocks to throw and yucky stuff to try and eat. He's sooo cute. His go-to dance move is the squattin' move, and his best but lest frequent move is his "spin move". :) I'm in love with his spin move. We also went to a birthday party for Caden & Chase's cousin and Josiah found a slide there that he lovvvvvvvveedddd. Here are a few pics! :)

Like I said, I still have a lot to unpack but one thing I had to finish was our bathroom. I LOVE our new shower curtain! I'm doing a black and white theme.

Shower Curtain:

Black & White Towels:

Soap covered in pretty paper by ME! :)

My new makeup bag. SO CUTE. Got it in Oregon with no sales tax :)

Ryan and I had "date day" today, and now he's watching baseball and I'm enjoying some Nutella on a spoon. DE-LISH. We went to the olive garden for lunch. Then we killed some time in between lunch and our movie by checking out the sales at Ashley Furniture. They had a few couches we liked and 2 or 3 dining room tables that we liked. I think Ryan enjoyed it more than he thought he would. And we were really only there for about 10 or 15 mins. I asked him on a scale from 1 - 10 (10 being the most grueling) how awful it was, and he said 4 which i think is pretty good. HAHA!

Anyway, I better go and eat dinner now that it's already 8:30. Should probably work on unpacking more boxes tonight, too. Happy 4th of JULYYYYYY!

Long Weekend

2010-05-29T17:43:00.000-07:00

We have a 3-day weekend for Memorial day. Wheeee! :) It's already been fun so far. My boss was gone yesterday (Friday). Today (Saturday) was Joey's first birthday party! I had such a great time watching his cute little self walk around, open presents, and eat his cute cake! I'm sure Nae will be posting pictures soon. He is suuuuch a sweetie. He stared at Daddy the whole time that we sang Happy Birthday, and he just looked like a little angel. I gave him about 100 kisses before we left. He had little sugary "buttons" on his cake, and I stuck one to his nose with frosting. He looked sooooo adorable. He didn't even know it was there. :) I love that little guy. James was happy to help him open his presents (I think he thought it was his birthday again a couple of times!) :) I can't believe Joey is already ONE! It seems like only about 3 months ago or so that we were at the hospital watching him come into this world. Stop growing up so fast, Joey-pie!

Today after the party Ryan and I went to the batting cages at the mini-golf place. I've only done it one time. This time I did 4 coins-worth which was like 60 pitches. eek! My first round (15 pitches) I did pretty good, but by the 4th round I was SO tired. I probably only hit like 3 of them. *SIGH* It was still fun though! Ryan did the fast pitches, too and he is good! I would probably scream every time because they are REALLY fast. When they hit the back board it sounds like a gun going off.

We're still waiting on the bank to do the underwriting for our loan and everything. I'm guessing we'll close probably mid-week on the week of the 6th - 12th. But that's just a guess. Hopefully for sure by that weekend. We have an extension in until the 18th but they don't expect it to take that long... that was just a safety net. I went to World Market to look for a present for a friend, and also to check out the wine selection because I want to get our realtor a little gift for when we close. Since I know basically NOTHING about wine, I was kinda just going by the picture on the front. I found one with a good picture and picked it up to put in my basket. I then realized that the name of it was Menage a Trois. Uhhhh. Yeah. I decided to put it back. I don't want to send the wrong message! YIKES! That would be an awkward gift.

Ya gotta check out this blog someday. http://audreycaroline.blogspot.com/2010/05/sweet-charlotte-girl.html (Start from the beginning to see her whole story. This is her latest post though.
She also wrote this book: http://www.amazon.com/Will-Carry-You-Sacred-Dance/dp/080546428X

What I've been up to

2010-05-24T18:16:00.000-07:00

PACKING!

We found out that we most likely will NOT be closing this Friday like we had hoped, so I'm now counting on the close date on our contract which is June 3rd. Hopefully we can get painting done and then move in asap! I want a little bit of overlap time so that we can get this place cleaned up and the new place prepped. I can't wait! In the mean time, I've been packing up stuff we don't use every day. I still have a TON more to pack though.

LOST!

The LOST series finale was on last night. I've been a devoted viewer since Episode 1. All of our friends love it too, so we had a get-together last night to watch it. It was fun! There were a lot of parts of the finale that I liked, but knowing that was the END... the LAST episode, and seeing how many of the mysteries went unanswered, made me over-all NOT like the episode. I was disappointed! I was hoping for the last scene to make me go "Oh my gosssshhhh!!!!!". It did not. I had fun preparing for it, and watching it (up until I realized it was THE END). The episode itself will probably slowly grow on me, but I don't think I'll ever be totally satisfied. *sigh*. That was my favorite show. My new favorite is Modern Family. That show is soooooooooo funny. I also think that it could be entertaining to a lot of different types of people; many age groups, girls, guys, parents, teens, grandparents... I LOVE IT. If that show gets cancelled I'm be so pissed! I'm bummed that Flash Forward is getting cancelled. It is not in my top favs but it's still one that we've watched consistently and I was hoping to keep watching it. Guess not. :(

I made LOST cookies. It's supposed to be a beach. I used crumbled cookie for the "sand". I really wanted to put little crashed airplanes on them but I didn't know where to find that sort of thing.

CRAFTS

I've been getting back into craftsy things lately. My latest thing is covering soaps. It'd probably be cooler if I actually MADE the soap myself, and then covered it, but I'm not that devoted. Without having to make the soap, it's actually a pretty quick craft which equals instant gratification. They sell 3 packs of soap for 5 bucks at Ross, so it's pretty cheap too. Here are some that I made for my mom and mother-in-law for mother's day:

I also recently got together with my craft-night-girls, Robin and Rachel, and we made jewelry. I made a necklace. It turned out cute! (sorry, no pic right now). Robin's earrings turned out great. They look store-bought. Rachel made some spiffy necklace which required crocheting that she's been working on for a while now. It looks really good! I wish I had more talent! But it's fun no matter what.

VACATION

We want to do something special for our 5th anniversary. Unfortunately, February is pretty much THE busiest time for Ryan at work. It's likely that he wouldn't be able to get the time off. So we probably need to plan our vacation either at the end of this year, or not until next year in May-ish. I've been wanting to take a big vacation before we decide to have kids because we might not be able to do something like that for several years once we have a baby. No, we don't have an official PLAN of when we're going to have kids, but we just know that we are probably getting a bit closer to that time now that our 5 year is coming up (plenty of time as "just" a married couple), we're buying a house (stability? Not that we couldn't have stability without a house. In fact, we'll probably be MORE poor. But somehow in our minds a house = stability. Still haven't figured out the logic behind that) :) So, perhaps we'll start trying in about a year. NO PROMISES PEOPLE! :) It's just a thought! Might still be a few more years. Who knows. No official plans yet.

Anyway, my "big vacation" plan is to go to HAWAII! I think a 5 night, 6 day trip will be best for us. I also want to go this year so that we don't have to wait like a year to go. I'm thinking November is best. Then it can count for my birthday, too! :) I first started researching Oahu because that is where Lost was filmed and you can go on a Lost Tour and see all of the places, swim at "kate and sawyers waterfall", and take pics in front of the yellow dharma barrack houses. It just sounded FUN! That is, until I watched the finale. haha. Just kiddinnnnng! But seriously, it might not be AS fun now that it's over and they'll probably tear down a lot of stuff. Plus, before we would've had a chance to meet or at least SEE the actors, but now that they're done that wouldn't happen. I still think it'd be fun. BUT, I found out after talking to a few people and researching online that Oahu is probably not the best of the islands. Parts of it (honolulu) are kinda big-city-ish, crowded, touristy, etc.

I took a "which island fits you best" quiz, and I think Maui or Kauai are going to be better choices for us. I've read that you should try to visit at least 2 islands when you visit hawaii, but that seems to be easier said than done. Right now I'm leaning toward Maui. It seems like it might have the best of all things. Some privacy, some touristy stuff to do, some nature-y stuff to do, etc. Hawaii is all I've been thinking about! I think I've been driving Ryan CRAZY talking about it. "Which island do you want to go to, what do you want to do, do you want to learn to surf, do you want to parasail with me, do you want to go on a dinner cruise, do you, do youuuu?" Yeahhhh. I see how that can get annoying. Especially when all of that stuff goes through my mind at bed time. I just want to make sure that we both have lots of fun. We don't always have the same interests, so it's something we need to plan ahead.

I haven't booked anything yet because we kind of need to see how our finances go after we move in to our house. We have some money saved for a vacation but you never know if we'll have to use it another way, or how much we'll be able to save in addition to our travel fund. So we'll see! I liked the reviews of Maui Coast Hotel on travelocity ( http://hotels.travelocity.com/hotel/hoteldetail.do?propertyID=34894 ), so we might stay there. Who knows! If anyone has been there before let me know what you think! Ashley also sent us a link to a condo from her boss which seems to have good prices and a great location. I believe it's in Kauai if I'm remembering right, so maybe we'll stay there if we go to Kauai! I can't wait to be sitting on the beach with a Mai Tai in my hand and my boyfriend (aka Husband, aka Ryan) by my side!

in escrow!

2010-05-14T11:53:00.000-07:00

We've been in escrow for about 2 weeks now. We're SO excited! We're supposed to close June 3, but our bank lady told us it might end up being a little bit sooner, like the very end of this month. I've been packing up boxes of stuff we don't use everyday and going through all of our crap and organizing stuff. It was nice to have the Mexico rummage sale right around the time I wanted to get rid of some stuff!

We are SOOO excited about our house. Everything worked out really, really perfectly. We've been looking for houses since early this year. We started out pretty slow, but then got more serious about it in the last couple of months. We looked at a lot of houses in Chico, and also considered a few houses in Paradise because they were significantly cheaper. (Although, you do pay for that in gas and inconvenience). We made an offer on a house that was really cute. It was a little bit small but it had a beautiful back yard, and it still had 3 bedrooms like we wanted. It was a great house over all. I didn't love the size of the kitchen or some of the flooring, but the rest of the house was great. We had to put a really low-ball offer in since it was listed for more than we could afford. We didn't get it. I wasn't totally bummed, but I also wasn't sure if we'd find what we wanted before the deadline for the $8,000 tax credit.

We looked at this house on Ceanothus that was listed for basically exactly what we set as our "max" in our minds. We went to see it and it seemed SO nice and big!!! We had looked at 2 other houses that day and they were horriblllllle. This one seemed perfect. It was an REO and we knew that it was under market because we could see what other houses on the same street were listed for and selling for. We figured someone might just make a higher offer than us, above the asking price, and we'd lose out. But we though "hey, let's give it a try!". When we went to write the offer, our realtor called to see if there were any offers. It sounded like there was one other one being submitted but he didn't know how much it was for. We figured they were probably offering the asking price like us, so he suggested we offer $500 more. I guess it did the trick! They counter-offered us for the same price, just with a few stipulations like a shorter escrow time (works for us!) and a shorter amount of time for inspections and things like that. So, even though it was technically a "counter offer", they essentially accepted our offer! Woo hoo! We signed agreement papers like 2 or 3 days before the cutoff for the $8000 tax credit, AND we also signed in a small window of time to where we not only qualifed for the $8000, but we will also get $10,000 from the state. YAYYY! The 10 thou will be payed in increments over 3 years. so we'll get a little over $3000 around tax time for the next 3 years. YESSS!

I just feel so blessed. The timing was PERFECT. We qualified for both tax credits. We got a great house (built in 2007) for UNDER market and still in our price range. It's bigger and newer than the houses we had looked at. It's in Chico in the 95973 area which we like. We'll be moving when it's not rainy outside. It's just perfect for us. We feel kind of poor now since our payments will be a lot more than what we're used to paying in rent, but I'm thinking our taxes the next few years will make that a lot easier! We just never thought we could get a house like this in our price range. A few little downsides - we needed to buy a new stove, and we'll need bathroom mirrors since there aren't any. Also, the backyard is tiny and pathetic but that doesn't really bother us. Almost no yard work!

Here are a few pics of the house from the real estate sites. We'll take more pics when we move in! :) :) :)

(Garage is in the back)

Here's our charming (read: small and pathetic) back yard! :)

Great Lyrics

2010-04-28T14:10:00.000-07:00

I bolded the parts that stand out to me :)

"By Your Side" - Tenth Avenue North

Why are you striving these days?
Why are you trying to earn grace?
Why are you crying ?
Let me lift up your face,
Just don't turn away.

Why are you looking for love?
Why are you still searching as if I'm not enough?
To where will you go child?
Tell me where will you run, To where will you run?

And I'll be by your side, Wherever you fall
In the dead of night, Whenever you call
And please don't fight, These hands that are holding you
My hands are holding you

Look at these hands and my side.
They swallowed the grave on that night
When I drank the world's sin
So I could carry you in
And give you life, I want to give you life.

Cause I, I love you
I want you to know
That I, I love you
I'll never let you go

_____________________________________________

James 4:8

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.

Oma's Bday & Paradise House

2010-04-08T17:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my great grandma's (Oma) 97th birthday. She is SO cute! I cannot believe how long she's lasting and how she can still totally pass for 80. haha. I know that she IS fading (losing her vision, hearing, memory in some ways, etc), but I do sometimes think she'll live forever! Haha. I joked with Ryan that I think she's like Richard Alpert from Lost. :)

Here's my beautiful, loving, sweet, godly great grandma Maria:

Before I went to Oma's birthday party, I went over to Lynae's house and had dinner with them (Pasta primavera. yum!). We walked two doors down to a cute yellow house that is for sale in our price range. Nae had snooped around the day before and noticed that the back door was unlocked. So yesterday we snuck in and looked around. It's a cute house. It's 3 bedrooms and 2 baths like we want. The size is smallish/average - about 1200 square feet. The backyard isn't any smaller or bigger than we need, and it has a little back deck. The kitchen is a good size and already has a dishwasher. The living room is a little bit small, but i've seen worse. It has a thing in the corner where it looks like a wood stove used to be. The windows are cute, and there's a BIG one in front in the living room. The main downside is that it smells like SMOKE and it was also built in 1970 so there might be some updates that we don't really realize. It looked like the garage might need some work, but the roof looks okay and the carpets seem to be pretty new.

We're going to try to see the house tomorrow with a realtor. I tried to contact our Paradise realtor the other day but I haven't heard back from him, so I'll probably see if our Chico guy can show us. Or, maybe the door will still be unlocked...? :) Ryan is yet to see it, and there is a house in Chico in a good location that we've been contemplating; it just needs a little bit of work. So I guess we have some decisions to make!

After we snooped at the house and ate dinner, it was time to go to see Oma. James got to ride in Aunt Leelee's car!!! :) He's so cute. I showed him that I had glasses, too and he said "they're new like mine are new!" I sang to him on the way there, and he doesn't make me stop like Ryan does. Haha! "Me and you, and you and me... no matter how you toss the dice, it has to be... the only one for me is you, and you for me... so happy togetherrrrrr!"

I had James guess how old Oma was turning, and he settled on "27!!!" Just a few years off. I tried to tell Oma and I'm pretty sure she heard me, but she might've been doing her fake laugh and nod thing she does when she has no idea what you just said. But still, I'm pretty sure she did hear me. :)

We took a few family pictures, visited, watched old family videos. Oma asked if my dad had any more "negatives" left on his camera because she wanted a picture of her flowers. She's probably never heard of a digital camera. We hung out on the "Oma swing" and wondered if it would break since it's 50+ years old, and ate ice cream cake. Oma shared her piece with Joey and he really liked it. He ended up with blue frosting all over his face and even on his ears. It was so sweet to see them together. I can't believe they're 96 years apart! Yikes!

Pinky Toe

2010-03-28T20:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I got up from the couch to go clean up the kitchen. I hopped over Ryan and yelled "BOYFRIEND ROOOON!" (which is what I sometimes call Ryan.) I slipped on a magazine on the floor and fell right over! I was running toward the kitchen so I fell kinda hard. I just sat there for a second. Ryan asked me if I was okay and I said yes. Then he said "weirdo", and I started to cry! hahahaaha!!!! I got very embarassed for being so silly and falling and then Ryan calling me Weirdo. I was totally fine like 2 minutes later. But I did hurt my lil pinky toe! It's still sore today and I was trying to figure out if it looked swollen or not. I wonder if I sprained it or something? I'm probably just being dramatic! But it does hurt. :-/ I still feel so silly!

If I only had a million dollars!!!

2010-03-16T16:30:00.000-07:00

I wish I could buy all of this stuff, but I'd have to have a lotta money!!! :) Still fun to think about though.

Cutest yellow shirt ever from Anthropologie. Check out the detail in the 2nd picture. I love it!!! (98 bucks!!!)

Blue Steve Madden shoes ($69.90)

I saw this swimsuit last year and I LOVE IT! It's from unique-vintage . com

It's $142 bucks and the only size is stock is XS. Ummm, nope!

I want a couch like this with a little chaise-like thing attached at one side. This particular one is from Ikea and it folds out into a bed. Sweet! It's $699

This massage chair makes me drool. It's from Hammacher Schlemmer and it's "only" $4999.95 :(

I WANT A HOUSE. And one that's pretty for a good price. This one is actually in Paradise and it's $220,000 but it's already in escrow. :( I LOVE the rocks on the front of the house, the sweeeet bathtub and the fact that there's a fireplace in the BEDROOM as well as the living room! It's also really big. I need it. Actually, I need it, but in Chico, and for cheaper.

Lyndsey's Oscar Special

2010-03-08T16:51:00.000-08:00

I thought it would be fun to tell you my fashion opinions on some of the stuff people chose to wear at the Academy Awards last night. I'm a closet fashion-fan, even if it doesn't always show in what I wear! (Having a perfect body and lots of money make it a LOT easier to be fashionable, you know!). Enjoy.

BEST DRESSED:

Sandra Bullock (Won for leading role in The Blindside -yayyy!) BEAUTIFUL dress. I actually saw her on a "worst dressed" list somewhere - they said that she looked like an ice skater! I know what they mean about the top part of the dress, but there's NO WAY she should be on a worst dressed list!!! This dress looked amazing on her. I also think her hair looked shiny & healthy and the style was very elegant. I don't think everyone can pull off red lipstick, but she looked great in it!

The color of Queen Latifah's dress went beautifully with her skin tone. This silhouette looks good on her, and I love the glittery accents. I'm not usually a fan of her hairstyles, but I guess it could be worse! The dress is a WIN.

Miley Cyrus pulled off this dress really well. I think the cut of this dress really fits her body. I always prefer a long gown even on the young ones. The color is kind of pale but I still think it looks great on her. Now if only she would never open her mouth!

Helen Mirren always dresses very age appropriate, but in a way that makes her look younger. I love her necklace! She looks great.

I liked Maggie Gyllenhaal's dress and makeup. It stood out among all of the frilliness on the red carpet. It's sleek and makes her look tall and thin. The dress itself is almost a piece of art. Her light pink lipstick made her face look fresh and youthful.

I really liked the style of dress that Sigourney Weaver wore last night at the oscars. I think it's age appropriate and elegant. I probably would've chosen a different color for her like a saturated blue or even green. I also think she should grow out her hair!

I thought that Gabourey Sidebe chose a great red carpet dress. The color looks great on her. Also, her body is admittedly probably a difficult one to dress, but I think they did a good job choosing flattering options. The neckline is great, and the sleeves also do a pretty good job of camoflauging her arms. I'm glad she didn't go with the classic oprah style of long sleeves even though it hides the arms because that style is much more appropriate for someone older. Way to go, Gabby and congrats on the oscar nomination!

Cameron Diaz's dress was beautiful! It compliments her blonde hair color, the cut of the dress is awesome, and the shine and glitter really makes it stand out! I didn't love her in the red lipstick this time for some reason.

Could be better...

I saw Kate Winslet on a "best dressed" list. Um, no. I mean, I love her but this dress is BORRRRRING. Understandably, she was a presenter and not a nominee but that doesn't mean you should wear the most boring thing ever. The top is okay, and then the bottom looks like her designer didn't finish the dress so they just threw a sheet around her. Also, her roots were growing out and it didn't look good at all.

I have to say that i do love this style of dress where the bustline is. The criss-cross action is SO flattering. But the dress itself looks like she accidentally spilled the cup of water that she was rinsing her watercolor paintbrushes in all over herself. Plus, her hair is kinda weird. But she's still a very pretty girl.

Penelope Cruz looks wonderful in this color and I don't think she looke dhorrible in this dress at all. I just really hate the top of it how one side goes higher than the other. It makes her boobs look lopsided and weird. I've just seen her in much better dresses. Her hair (at least from the front) looks un-styled but her eye makeup is pretty.

Oh, Mariah. What can I say? Again, this dress isn't HORRIBLE. But at the same time, it's nothing special either. My biggest complaint is that this chick CANNOT seem to bring herself to wear something covered up. Everything she wears is either too low cut, too short, or too tight. In this case, I would've really liked the dress but because of her personality and past styles, the thigh high slit just BUGS me.

This dress is age appropriate and the neckline is flattering. Sure, she doesn't look bad in this dress, but the dress itself is just UGLY and BORING. It doesn't make her body look bad at all, but it just looks kind of like a fancy robe or something. I don't love it.

Worst Dressed

This is just ugly. I hate it. And I don't care enough to look up her name.

Oh J-Lo. yes, we know you have a big butt. You don't have to paint on your dresses anymore! This dress made her look fat, frankly, through the butt and hip area. The big fluff off of the hip is just ugly. The color is boring. I just hate it.

When you see Zoe Saldana's dress from the waist up, it's not that bad. And then you see the bottom and you wonder WHAT THE HELL SHE WAS THINKING. This dress is ugly... too much. I hate it. Her shoes need to be burned.

SJP. Ugly dress on an ugly girl. I don't know why people like her or her fashion! Sorry for all of you SJP fans, but c'mon. No. The neck strap? Hideous. The big floral blob just beneath the neck strap? Ugly. The cut of the dress and the weird, saggy back area? God-awful. This is a big huge FAIL. Even the color is boring.

WHAT is this woman WEARING? It looks like one of those nightmare bridesmaid dresses you'd see on one of those websites or in a movie or something. You look... like a freak. I didn't really like her in Up in the Air, either. George was hot.

Charlize. Yes, you have big flowers on your boobs. Whatever. Lame. (Color's nice though)

Dudes

K, I'm sure it's really difficult to have ANY kind of personal style when it comes to being a GUY and having to dress up fancy. But, I think it's just something that they're going to have to just accept! I mean, check out these losers!

K, "T-bone"... first of all, you're way too old to have that nickname. Also, don't EVER wear sunglasses INSIDE; especially those ugly ones. You look old and lame. John Travolta... you don't wear JEANS to a red carpet event! I don't care if they're designer and cost hundreds of dollars. You are underdressed. Ahh, Bradley Cooper. My boyfriend. :) Sorry, but you look like a butler. Don't even get me started on Robert Downey Jr. I don't know if you can tell in this picture, but his sunglasses are BLUE to match his bow-tie. As if the blue bow-tie isn't bad enough on it's own. and again, don't mix fancy with casual. Your tennis shoes have GOT to go!

Now, these guys know how to do it. First dude, I don't know your name but you did a great job of just choosing a REGULAR black suit with a TIE which I much prefer over a bow-tie. I also like the black-on-black style that Hairy Williams chose to wear. It looks really sleek and professional. I kinda like the goatee on him, too. And third guy, I don't remember your name but I will just call you "Minkowski from Lost". Here is another example of just a simple black suit, jacket isn't too long, tie instead of bowtie, pants aren't too tight. Win.

THIS? IS THE SCARIEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN.

THE END.

Houses

2010-02-22T22:57:00.000-08:00

Ryan, Tammy and I went out last Saturday to look at houses with a realtor. Sadly, I think the one I posted before has been sold. :( But that's okay. It might take time to find the right one. We looked at about 5 houses. Probably only 1 or 2 of them were ones to think about.

This is one of them:

We like it and the price is right within our range but it's only a 2 bedroom and we prefer a 3 bedroom. It also just seemed sooo teeny all together. We would be downgrading in size for sure. We liked the size of the back yard - not too small, not too big. But, it just doesn't make sense for us to move somewhere much smaller for more $ even if it means we own it.

There isn't a ton of selection out there for our price range so I'm having trouble finding good stuff in Chico. It seems like everything I find online either is already in escrow or already has an offer on it OR it's a "short sale" which we're trying to avoid for various reasons.

Here is another one in Chico that I'm interested in seeing. It's a little bit out of our price range, though, so we'd have to just watch it for a while and see if it goes down. We'd also have to offer less than the asking price even if it goes down a little bit. It's about 20 thousand higher than the top end of our price range. But, you never know! :) (It's been on the market for almost a month. No price change so far).

We decided to look online at houses in Paradise, just to see the prices and selection. As far as we can tell from pictures, there are some houses in Paradise that are similar to or better than the houses we've looked at in Chico, and they are a good 20 - 50 thousand dollars cheaper! We prefer not to live in Paradise - we LOVE Chico, we work in Chico, and Chico is much more convenient than Paradise, but with house prices that cheap we at LEAST have to look. It wouldn't kill me to be closer to the two cutest boys in the whole wide world (James and Joey) :) We have to keep in mind that despite the price difference, we might be making up for that in lost TIME with our work "commute" every day AND another 200-ish in gas money each month, too. So we just have to see. We have an appointment on Sunday to look at a couple of houses in Paradise. If there are any that we like and we decide that we can put up with the inconveniences of living in Paradise, my guess is that we'll make an offer lower than the asking price and just see what happens. Then if we don't get it then I guess it wasn't meant to be! Right?

Here are two of the three that we'll be seeing on Sunday...

This one is a little bit higher in price than the other two we're going to see, but still well within our price range. It says it's a 2 bedroom but but that there's a den that could serve as a 3rd bedroom. I guess we'll have to see it. Me likey that kitchen. Again, downsides and upsides to all of the ones we find:

This one is totally within our price range. 3 bed 2 bath. Perfect little back yard:

Tammy will hate us if we do move to Paradise! She will call us "The Others" like on Lost. We much prefer Chico for a number of reasons but, we can't just ignore the good prices. So we'll see. Right now we're just praying for direction and for the right house for us at the right time and the right price! We're excited, but it's time consuming and it also consumes my BRAIN! I go to bed thinking about houses and prices. I sit on the computer for hours looking for houses. It's crazy! But we're excited. :)

Anniversary

2010-02-22T22:26:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, Feb 19th, was our 4 year anniversary! I can't believe it's already been 4 years. I just know I'm going to feel the same way when it's like our 25th. We didn't take a trip or anything but we still had a wonderful time celebrating together.

We decided to keep it pretty simple. I told Ryan I'd get him candy if he got me flowers. :) Flowers are my FAVORITE! He got me beautiful orangey roses and made sure to get the kind that fade from light to dark because he knows I think those kind are pretty. They are beautiful!

I decided earlier in the week that I was going to take a vacation day keep it a secret from Ryan so that I could stay home and clean the whole house as a surprise for him! When he got home I was upstairs and he brought my roses up there. He was surprised and happy that I took time to clean (yay!) I was majorly excited about my beautiful roses, too. I got him his fav - reese's PB cups I even got them in a heart-shaped box since our anniversary is only 5 days after Valentine's day.

We went to Christian Michael's for sort of an early dinner. It was the first time we had been there. They have pretty good food and a nice atmosphere. I got the bacon wrapped meatloaf which was something that Ryan's boss suggested or else I probably would've tried something else. Ryan ordered ribs. I also got a lemondrop. :) Yum! Afterward, we planned to see a movie but we had a little bit of time to kill. We were about 3 blocks from work, and Ryan hadn't seen our new office yet (except for pictures), so I dragged him over there to show him. It was a nice little walk and the weather was nice, too, which was great because I thought it was supposed to rain that day. Plus, we had a minute to burn off (2 bites of) our food. We still had a little bit of time to kill before our movie so we drove over to baskins after our food settled a little bit and got ice cream. After that we got to the movies in time to get the row that's right behind that bar thingie which is great because you can rest our feet on it and no one sits directly in front of you and makes you move your feet. We saw Valentine's Day and it was pretty cute! Probably not Ryan's favorite type of movie but I think the big cast (including his girlfriend Jessica Alba) was at least a little bit appealing to him. I thought it was a cute movie and I had a great time with my sweet husband. :)

Afterward, we returned home to a CLEAN house and we were able to relax on the couch for a little bit and talk and watch TV together before we went to bed. It was such a great night! Ryan is my best friend in the whole world. I love spending time with him even if we're not really doing anything. I'm am so proud to be his wife. He cares deeply for me and he makes sure to show me how much he loves me every day. He's affectionate and sweet. He's worked hard to move up at work and show his "skillz" and provide for us. I am so thankful each night to have him next to me, and in the morning to wake up next to him and wish him a great day at work. I love coming home to him - even if I have to cook him dinner! :) I love to hear about his day and his goals and accomplishments. I love to make him happy. I love to tell him what a great husband he is. Our 4 years together so far have been GREAT and I can't wait for more and more years together.

House

2010-02-16T16:47:00.001-08:00

This is the house we want but it's definitely on the HIGHEST end of what we could afford. And to be able to afford it we'd have to do some string pullin'. :) We would have to do it in time to get the $8000 tax rebate which ends April 30. We read that you still have time to close after April 30th, so I guess we'd have to make the offer by then I guess? But April 30 will be here like, TOMORROW practically. We'd also want to borrow the $8000 from a grandparent or something, put it down as part of the down payment to bring our monthly payment down, and then pay them back a couple of months later when we get our return. We would ALSO ask that the seller pays the closing costs. I think it's fair to offer the asking price minus closing costs, don't you?? :) So it would take some work. I have no idea. I emailed a realtor about seeing houses possibly this weekend but I haven't heard back from her yet. :(

3 Bedroom, 2 Bath in South Chico (about 10 mins closer to Paradise). I mostly love the yards. It also has a little storage shed outside, too. I like the wood floors too (even though they're probably not real!) I'd eventually want to paint the outside because that brown color is ugly. I'm not getting too excited because we proooobably won't be able to get it, but we'll see!

Books / Music

2010-02-12T21:35:00.000-08:00

Greetings from the living room couch!

This is just the beginning of the stack of books I'm reading or are on my "to read" list.

Bright Lights, Big Ass is a book that Jessica Jackson got me for my birthday. Yep, back in November. I started it a couple of weeks after I got it. At one point I cleaned my house pretty well and cleared all of the clutter off of our coffee table including that book. After putting it on my book shelf, it was kind of an "out of sight, out of mind" situation and I forgot all about the book! I've never been much of a reader so it's not constantly on my mind to pick back up a book that I've started. Anyway, I finally picked it up again. I've been reading it while I do my foot detox bath. I usually just read one chapter at a time. Now I only have 3 chapters left. Yay! It's a very entertaining book. One that isn't deep, but more like reading an amusing journal or something. The book is basically little stories about the author's life. She used to have a kind of high-profile job but decided to pursue writing instead and was forced to keep up temp jobs in the mean time. She says her shopping "holy trinity" is Ikea, Target and Trader Joe's. My kind of girl! Anyway, she's pretty much hilarious but she kind of likes the F word. :-/ Like I said, it's been a go-to entertainment book, like watching TV, and not something that is going to GROW me. :)

The Lyme Disease Survival Guide is a book that I realllyyyy wanted for Christmas, and Nae got it for me. :) Connie, the author, has a lyme blog here on blogger as well as a video blog on Youtube. She seems smart and has Lyme herself, so she's done a lot of research and tried a lot of different treatments. She talks a lot about detox as treatment for Lyme. She's also a Christian and I think she has similar experience with me (and probably other Lymies) where sometimes she just has to give up and not think about Lyme at all. Leave her treatment in the hands of God instead of the hands of antibiotics. :) I just think she's going to have good advice and another perspective. I'm sad to say that I haven't even started the book yet. I skimmed through it on Christmas day on the way from Magalia to Chico after we picked up Ryan's grandpa. I think part of the reason that I didn't start it yet is because I kind of got sick of thinking about Lyme 18/24 hours a day! (The rest was spent sleeping, ya know). The antibiotics made me feel all yucky and messed up my stomach BIG TIME so after I went off of them I just wanted a break from thinking about meds. I still feel that way a little bit but I'm starting to get on track again; mostly because I want to be DONE with Lyme. I have a doc appointment in a couple of weeks so we'll see what they wanna do with me. *sigh* Anyway, I am looking forward to reading it.

On a similar note, I've read most of What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Fibromyalgia (also a Christmas gift from a previous year, haha), but I never finished it. Oh wait, I have a picture of my "excited" face to get a sicky-book from my husband for Christmas. LOL.

Back to the book - So, it has a treatment regimen that includes taking guaifenesin (found in lots of cold medicines), while eliminating all sources of salicylic acid. I'd explain the science behind it but 1, I don't really remember everything and 2, I'm not smart enough to explain it in my own words. It's a treatment I might have to resort to just to TRY if nothing else works. It wouldn't be too bad but it would require a lot of prep. Salicylic acid is in EVERYTHINGGG and I'd also have to eliminate anything with natural oils/extract/etc which would mean my beloved chapstick, minty toothpaste, certain shampoos, conditioners, hair products, etc. I might end up with really fluffy hair and orangey-scented teeth, but if it means I'm better then I don't care. :)

Dear John and The Last Song are both Nicholas Sparks books. Yes, he wrote A Walk to Remember and THE NOTEBOOK. Dear John and The Last Song have also just been made into movies too! Dear John just came out but I haven't seen it yet. I'll probably end up reading that book AFTER I see the movie. The Last Song comes out sometime in the next few months, so I can probably read that book before I see the movie. Even though it's going to star Miley Cyrus (BLEH!), I still think I want to see it. I won a lot of 5 Nicholas sparks books for pretty cheap on Ebay, so I will have a lot of his books on hand to read in the future if I ever get bored of our endless TV show addictions. The other books I have from him are The Rescue, The Wedding (sequel to The Notebook), and The Lucky One. They'll probably all be made into movies since so far the following movies are all based on his books: Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember, The Notebook, Nights in Rodanthe, Dear John, and The Last Song. DANNNG!

One other book I'm interested in re-reading is The Catcher in the Rye. I only thought of it 'cuz ol' J.D. Salinger kicked the bucket a few weeks ago. :( I'm guessing he was pretty old. Yep, looked it up... 91. That book is funny.

We've been downloading stuff from iTunes lately because I got a GC for Christmas and Ryan got one today. We're different about how we choose our songs. Ryan usually tries to pick all 15 songs or whatever all at once and searches through all kinds of artists until he finds all the songs he wants. I just pick a song here and there and download it when I want to and then leave the extra 8 credits or whatever until I think of another song I want to get. I think that way I don't "settle" for one. haha! I heard "Chicken Fried" by the Zac Brown Band on the Grammys and for some reason I really liked it even though it's the most honky-tonk country song EVER! I downloaded it. Even though it's not really my type of music I just think that they're really talented and the guy's voice is EXCELLENT. Recently I think Ryan developed a crush on Taylor Swift, and she also has 3 songs on our newest guitar hero game so I started to like her music, too. :) We just bought her CD today. I'm listening through it right now and it's pretty good so far. I like that she writes all of her music, especially for a young pop-ish girl because usually they need some serious help when it comes to writing. But she's good. I like that the songs come from her own mind and experiences. I just never though I'd be purchasing country CDs and songs, and especially that RYAN would like some of them, too. Although, I don't believe he's into the Chicken Fried song. haha! I've never liked country music much unless you count when I was little and I tried to convince myself that I liked it because my bestie liked it. Nope, doesn't count. Or when Lynae and I would turn it to the country station when we were in the car and try to guess the lyrics and sing along even though we didn't know the songs. For some reason we thought it was super duper hilarious. :) 'Member that, Nae?

A few other songs I downloaded recently: Rock & Roll - Eric Hutchinson, Angel - Jack Johnson (sooo cute. fav lyric is: "She can make angels. I've seen it with my own eyes. You gotta be careful when you've got good love, cuz the angels will just keep multiplying" He's talking about babies. awww!), umm, let's see... I'd Rather Be With You - Joshua Radin, Live Like We're Dying - Kris Allen, Always Be My Baby - Mariah Carey (heck yes!!!), Breakeven - The Script. Good stuff. I read an interview yesterday from John Mayer and it made me feel all Barfy at what a weirdo/sicko he's become (or maybe he always was..?). Whatever. I still love his music! I used to - I know this sounds really funny - but I used to pray for him every once in a while. Just because I don't know him doesn't mean I can't pray for him! I think I should start again. He sounds confused like he doesn't know who he should be or how he should act. It kinda sucks. I'm happy when people are successful but I hate when fame ruins someone.

I guess I should go now. Now that you're thoroughly bored if you made it to the end of this. :)

http://www.lala.com/#song/360569470939005376/Zac_Brown_Band/Chicken_Fried

http://www.lala.com/#song/432627056443841271/Jack_Johnson/Angel

http://www.lala.com/#song/504684642129748704/Joshua_Radin/I%27d_Rather_Be_With_You

http://www.lala.com/#song/504684673844808514/John_Mayer/Edge_Of_Desire

Our new office

2010-01-30T19:05:00.000-08:00

We are moved in to our new office now. Yayy! We still have some finishing touches (uhh, like a counter top on our new "breakfast bar"!) and some unpacking to do, but we're having fun getting settled. A couple of our designers came up with the color scheme. The colors are a little bit off in some of the pics, but the main colors are a beautiful dark chocolate brown and a pretty light blue. Then our accent colors are BRIGHT and loud. Lime green in the kitchen and orange on our skylights. It looks great! The carpet is almost black and matches really well. They painted part of the ceiling black for a dramatic effect, too. Then the pretty light blue is in the bathrooms, too. It's pretty sweet! We've been waiting for a long time to upgrade offices and we're lucky we were able to at this point in time, too.

Here's the empty office

and a few with our desks set up :)

The private offices (one for my boss) :)

This is our very own conference room! The one we had before was hmm, basically... a closet.

Lime green kitchen (unfinished breakfast bar. It'll eventually have pretty lights hanging down and a counter top).

Mole/Lost/Move

2010-01-26T15:41:00.001-08:00

“Mole”. I remember when James learned that word. Haha. He had lots of spots on me to find them, too. He likes to point them out. I like how his little mouth makes a little “O” shape. He’s so cute.

I went to the dermatologist today because last week one of my moles kinda swelled up and then went it went back down it was all crusty and sometimes bloody. It was nasty. Today the doctor removed it and said that what most likely happened was that some kind of pimple or wart or other bump got underneath it, and that’s why it started acting up. He removed it and then did a little cauterization. BLEH. It was quite disgusting. He numbed it so it didn’t hurt, but it was still mighty disgusting. Now I have a hole in my face for the time being that I’ve only looked at for a second because it grosses me out. Plus, I’ve had a bandaid on it all day. I asked him about a few other little ones that were on my neck and a “skin tag” that I had in my armpit for years that I’ve always had to shave around. Barf. He said he’d cut them off as a “courtesy” (in other words, I don’t have to pay), since I was there anyway. He said “we don’t numb these little ones, we just snip them”. BARRRFFF! That kind hurt but not as much as I thought. Now they kinda feel like paper cuts. So, if you see me in the next few days looking like Nelly or something with a bandaid on my face, that’s why. (Lookin’ like a foo witchyo pants on the ground!). I hope the big hole that is there right now goes away like, tomorrow.

________________________________________

Anyway, I’m way excited about LOOOOSSSSTTTT. It starts in 1 week from today. I’ve been emailing back and forth with Carrisa today about it. We found an episode list for the first few. It’s from IMDB so I’m guessing it’s legit. I’m going to paste it here, so, if you’re one of those weirdos who can’t know ANNNYYYYTTTHHIINNNGGG about Lost until it airs, then close your eyes.

1. LA X (the space is intentional and is supposed to “mean” something)
2. What Kate Does (DOES! Not DID!)
3. (not named)
4. The Substitute
5. Lighthouse
6. Sundown
7. Dr. Linus
8. Recon
9. Ab Aeterno (means “since the beginning of time” and is SPOLIER!…sorta – A Richard-centric episode. Who would’ve guessed?! Haha)
Eps 10 & 11 are not named either.
12. Everybody Loves Hugo (Remind you of episode, “Everybody HATES Hugo”…??)
The rest of the episodes aren’t named yet.

I can’t wait! I wonder why they haven’t named #3 yet? Weird.

________________________________________

In a few days my work office is moving from the building we’re in now to a building on the other side of downtown. It’s going to be bigger and WAY cooler looking on the inside. They just remodeled it and re-painted everything. My boss is going to have her own office (sweet!), and we’re going to have extra space and more room to grow. I can’t wait to move. I’m going to pack up all of my desk stuff tomorrow, and then we move on Thursday. I have a feeling it won’t take me long to unpack, and someone in the other office is doing my work-related responsibilities that day since we don’t know when our network will be up, so HOPEFULLY that means I just get to go home early. Yayyy!

I got glasses!

2010-01-21T22:09:00.000-08:00

They're called "Drama Queen". Tee hee hee! :)

AHHH!

2010-01-19T18:44:00.000-08:00

-A certain person at work is bugging the CRAP out of me. I can't wait to move offices on the 28th and maybe have an area alone-ish.

-I have a big headache.

-The (expensive) ionic foot bath I bought isn't working and I have to find a time to get in contact with the maintenance dudes who probably can't help me much more than the directions can.

-People bug me.

-The ceiling near our sliding glass door is leaking. (Must call landlord tomorrow. Oh, and the foot bath people. Oh, and the new loan officer at the bank. Oh, and probably Stephanie so I can get a MASSAGE!)

-2 of our burners on our electric stove get hot even when they're not turned on so I have to leave them unplugged and the tray below gets full of crumbs. (Add to landlord list).

-I'm hungry but I'm supposed to eat one of my SmartOnes for dinner which for some reason right now sounds equivalent to poop. That is, a SMALL portion of poop.

-I have an appointment with Mitch and my doctor on Monday. I get to take at least 2 hours out of my day so that they get to charge me to say "the pills aren't working" and for them to say "try them for another month and we'll re-evaluate". I should probably reschedule for another month from now. (Ohh, another person to call. yay! from work! While I can't think straight because SOMEONE is constantly screaming.)

-It's raining non-stop which depresses me and makes me wanna stay in bed allllll dayyyyy.

-I feel bad for bitchin and complaining when my life could be 1000 times worse. I need to be thankful for all of the things that are RIGHT instead of dwelling on what is NOT right. Sometimes venting is a necessity though. :(

What's new?

2010-01-15T23:51:00.000-08:00

Ohhh, you know. Not a ton. But I thought I should post anyway.

This week I saw the eye doctor. For the last 6 - 12 months or so I've noticed my vision changing a little bit. It hasn't been a huge change, and I can see fine close up, but my distance vision was getting blurrier. I tried on Carrisa's glasses one time in church and I could see the words on the screen WAY more clearly. Anyway, I'm getting glasses in a week or two but I only have to wear them sometimes. The doc said I should wear them when I'm driving, especially at night, and if i go to the movies or something. Basically anytime I need to see far away. I won't need them at work to see the screen since my vision is fine. It was SO hard for me to pick out frames and I guess I didn't even realize that I'd have to pick them out that same day. The nice lady helped me. She was very helpful, but she was a little bit older so she might have different taste. But I think I like the ones I got as much as I'm going to like any other pair. I tried on a million of them and felt like a big dork in every single one. I'm looking forward to trying them out though, and being able to see far away if I want to! :) YAYYY. Please don't laugh behind my back. hahaha.

Today I took Ryan to the toe doctor to get a procedure done to prevent ingrown toenails in the future. He's had a history of problems with ingrown toenails, which had gotten worse after Tyler stomped his toenail off about a year ago. Anyway, I got the procedure done on one side of one of my toes when I was younger (12-ish?), and it wasn't too bad at all. Ryan got himself a bit worried about it and I kept telling him it was going to be fiiiiine. After he was done he told me and the doctor that it was "1000 times better" than he thought it was going to be. Yayyy! We'll see how he does in the next few days while he's healing up. Anyway, I watched most of the procedure and it was pretty much disgusting. But I don't really mind that stuff. The worst part was watching him do the numbing shots. I think that was the worst part for Ryan, too, because that's pretty much the only part that he could actually feel. Anyway, Blood. Toenails. Ew. Right? Bleh.

I don't know what my last update on my health was on this blog, so I'll just give a short update. So, they took me off of antibiotics which has made a big difference on how my tummy has been feeling. It was awful before, but much better now. Still not back to normal though. I need to pump myself full of probiotics. I got myself some drinkable yogurt (sounds weird but this particular brand is really good!) so that I can increase the good stuff in my belluh. :) I only did hyperbaric for 2 weeks this last time. I didn't notice any difference this time around. That's kind of why they took me off of the antibiotics. Lyme is never easy to diagnose and they don't usually say 100% sure if you have it or not. The tests aren't always clear. So, we're still pretty sure that it is Lyme but since I wasn't reacting to treatment it is possible that it was doing more harm than good. I got a Lyme book for Christmas from Nae that I have yet to read, but I'm excited to finish. :) (Did that make sense?) I found the author online - she has a blog and also a video blog on youtube. She isn't a doctor but she has lyme herself and she's done a lot of research. She's also a Christian and not only has lots of tips about lyme, but she has good advice from a biblical perspective, too. I have like at least 5 books on my "to read" list. She talks alot about detoxing so that's probably what I'm going to look into next. I'm getting one of those ionic foot baths and it has two hookups so Ryan can do it with me and get rid of his toxins, too. :) I will also need to start taking the cholostyramine powder again which is a toxin binder. I got a skin brush so that i can do dry brushing which rids toxins from your lymph system. She also suggests doing coffee enemas but that sounds SCARRRYYY! EEEEWWW. For now they have me on Plaquinel and that's it (yayy!) (er, besides BC and lexapro), but it's cut my pill intake down from like 91 to like 21 pills per week which is awesome! I haven't noticed a change yet, but we'll see. I have a doc appt in a week or two.

Seriously? Were the last 3 subjects about doctor appointments? Ugh, we're so lame and old.

Lost starts in less than 3 weeks! I'm so excited! It's the final season which sucks buuuut, hopefully our questions will finally be answered! One of the things bugging me the most so far HOW does Locke know soooo much in Season 1?! If you re-watch it, it's crazy. He knows all kinds of stuff ahead of time so it seems like he's either been there before or someone is "advising" him. WEIRD. I can't wait for the final season. 24 starts soon, too. This weekend, I think! yaayyy. It looks like a good season. I think Kiefer is supposed to be on Kimmel tonight. By the way - his eyebrows are SOOOO overplucked! (Jimmy, not Kiefer). It looks really weird. Check it out sometime.

I love my husband so much! I was just thinking today about how much he makes me laugh. It's usually stupid stuff, but he's so silly. He was really loving today. I took him to his appointment and made sure he was okay. (haha) And I think he was really thankful for that. He kept telling me thank you and giving me hugs and kisses. I love when he is happy, especially if it's partially my doing! :) He thanks me for silly things like cooking the take and bake pizza that HE went to pick up. HAHAHA! Uhhh, I just stuck it in the oven, silly.

Anyway, i know this was a really random post (and just fyi, I'm not going to re-read it or spell check, so deal with it). But, I need to go to bed soon because I'm really, really tired and it's past midnight which is late enough for my old-arse.

Goodnight!

PS - I hate, hate, hate being outbid on Ebay! It makes me SAD!

Life lately

2009-11-30T21:54:00.000-08:00

I haven't blogged in a while because, well, not a whole lot was going on for a while. I decided to blog tonight with stuff that's happened lately.

Health update first, I suppose. I did hyperbaric treatment again for a total of only two weeks. The first week went fine. During the first day of the second week, I was having trouble popping my ears. They bring the pressure up so fast that you have to constantly clear your ears. It's like being in an airplane but the pressure sneaks up on you a lot faster. We go "down" about 40 feet below sea level (pressure-wise), and at 10 feet I couldn't clear my ears. We tried to go to about 12 feet and my ears started to hurt pretty bad. They sent me back to work and I didn't treat that day. I came back the next day and it was the same thing all over again. We decided to just re-schedule for the following week to give my ears a rest. Also, I was getting over a cold so that is what was most likely causing my ear problems. The next week I did a full 5 days of treatment. It gets pretty boring in there, but we do get to watch movies. This time I was in there with a few other old-ish people. One lady was really old and I generally let her use the bathroom first after we got out of the chamber, since I wasn't ever really in a hurry anyway. One day she thanked me for always letting her go first, whispering in my ear, "You know, I wear depends but I don't always count on them!" It's funny how much old people will share with you and with such little shame. :) Haha. She was really cute and had a tiny voice which I liked.

Following Hyperbaric treatment I have not really noticed much herxing for a long time. I'm still on the same meds as before. Last night my left shoulder blade hurt REALLY bad again. That was the same thing that happened last time I had a herx reaction. I'm hoping that it was also a herx reaction this time and not just that I tweaked my shoulder or something. Last night I put one of those stinky menthol patches on it that I got a while back from that acupuncturist that I was seeing. I didn't notice the pain today at all. I think I remember them saying that the patch is supposed to suck toxins out of the sore spot, but I'm not sure if that's accurate or not. It seemed to work either way. I'm hoping my leg or hip or knee or something will start hurting again, too. That way I'll know whether I'm reacting or not. I just want to KNOW that the lyme is being KILLED OFF!

So, last Wednesday my stomach hurt reallllyyy bad and I felt totally nauseous. I didn't eat dinner (which is quite weird for me) and I immediately stopped taking my meds cuz they already bug my stomach a lot and I knew I couldn't handle any more going on in there. I went to bed early with a barf bowl by my bed, but luckily I didn't have to use it. The following day was Thanksgiving. I felt better in the morning but still not 100%. I ate as much food at Thanksgiving that I would on any other day (PLUS pie). I did okay for most of the day but near the end of the celebration I felt like crap so we went home around 7:30-ish. I felt quite yucky again and went to bed early again. Each day after that I felt a little bit better, and I think I'm finally around like 90 - 95% today. YES! I didn't take my pills that whole time which is probably not that good, but I honestly couldn't handle anything else bugging my stomach. BLEH! I started them up again last night. (No, I'm not pregnant by the way.)

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Thanksgiving was pretty good over all. Luckily, I didn't have any responsibility concerning the food or food preparation. YES! All I had to do was bring apple cider. It turned out yummy. I just heated it up in our slowcooker with a few cinnamon sticks on the bottom. Yum yum! James and Joey were so cute. Most of my relatives were there. We just hung out, ate, watched football, played with James, etc. I'm thankful for Grandma, Carl, my mom, and all of the others who helped pull it off this year. There are many things this year to be thankful for. I am so thankful for my Ryan. I just have so much fun with him even when we're just sitting around on the couch watching TV together. He takes good care of me when I need "pushes" (that's when he pushes on my back until it feels better), helping me remember to pay the bills, listening to me rant about work or whatever it may be. He's sweet and funny and handsome and I LOVE HIM! :) I am also so thankful for my family - Mom, Dad, Tammy, Lance, Nae & Seth and my favorite boys, James and Josiah. I can't get enough of my nephews and their cute smiles. I try to steal all of their kisses and snuggles. :) I am thankful for our jobs, even when we dislike them. We are blessed to be making money during this time. There are a hundred other things I could list, I'm sure.

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One thing I am very thankful for is the way that God works things out. And for new friends. Which brings me to my next story. So, some background first. Mitch (my lyme-dude that works along side of my doctor and also runs the hyperbaric center in Chico), is also our landlord. His daughter Brandee married a family friend, Mikey. (Is it Mike now? We're all grown up!). When we moved into the triplex that Mitch owns (where we live now), Brandee and Mike lived next door to us. They moved out about 2 months after we moved in so we didn't get to know them as well as we wanted to. They moved to Davis for school (med school for Mikey, eeeek!). Anyway, I decided to email Brandee via Facebook because I remember hearing that either she or her sister had lyme disease. I emailed her to ask her about how she was feeling now, what treatments she did, how long she had symptoms, what her symtpoms were like, etc. I just felt like it was a pretty easy and non-threatening way to reach out to someone else who might kind of have an idea of what I'm going through. She wrote back and told me about her symptoms and that she was on antibiotics for years, and that she is feeling a lot better than when she was in jr. high school when her symptoms were at their worst. THEN she told me that she was going to be in town for a doctors appointment that next week and asked me if I wanted to get together and talk. ACK! Way out of my comfort zone, right? But it was actually just what I needed. We chatted back and forth a little bit through facebook email, and decided we'd meet that Tuesday around 8:30 but didn't pin-point a place yet. Come Monday night I hadn't heard back from her and I wasn't sure what to do. She had given me her cell phone number so I decided to just text message her on Tuesday morning to see if she could still get together. I just said, "I didn't hear back from you, so I wasn't sure if we were meeting this morning. Let me know if another time would work better". She called me back a few minutes later. Her internet connection was down at her parents house so she couldn't write me back or retrieve my phone number from her email. She told me she was freaking out since she had no way to get ahold of me. She asked if I had just texted her a few minutes ago because she can almost NEVER recieve texts due to poor reception at her parents house. But, she got mine! :) We ended up going to Cafe Ricci accrossed the street from our place that morning. It all worked out, despite bad cell phone reception and no internet connection. WOO HOO! We could only meet for about 45 minutes because she had an appointment that morning. It was great to talk to her. She is really, really sweet and easy to talk to. So it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. She was really encouraging. She told me that I could call her anytime if I need someone to talk to. She's like "just call me anytime! We can even pray over the phone! Whatever you want!". She is such a nice girl and I think she really had a soft spot in her heart for me and my lyme-issues. She has been well for several years but kind of had a "relapse" about a year ago. She shared with me that God has taught her a lot especially in this last year of getting sick again. I shared my fears with her about the future which are fears that she has also had. I'm scared of getting more and more sick each year and my husband having to take care of my like I'm an old lady. I'm scared that I won't have enough energy to be a parent, or that a pregnancy would be really hard on my body. I'm scared of passing on the lyme to my baby. I'm scared of the lyme spreading to my brain and having to deal with difficult cognitive issues (which is the case for a good number of lyme patients). These are all things that she has feared as well. She told me that God taught her this time that he is bigger than us and our Lyme. If he wants us to have children, we will have them and he will give us enough strength to care for them. We might be afflicted with Lyme, but it doesn't define us. The verse that kept coming up in her mind was the one in 2nd Corinth about taking every thought captive. She would have a fear/thought about the future and she'd have to realize that God is bigger than that fear. Then she'd "take the thought captive" and submit her fear to God. Pretty much repent for not having the faith that she should have. I agree with everything she says. I told her that I know all of that in my heart but sometimes it does overwhelm me. I know that she understands though. I am glad that she was open with me and also that I have another person praying for me now. I wish she lived here so that we could be closer friends. I need to email her soon to find out how her appointment went and to thank her again for reaching out to me (especially since it is so out of my comfort zone). I, of course, began to cry at one point (or two) because I'm wimpy or, "a big ball bag" as Allie's mom in The Notebook phrases it. I think I was also just emotional anyway, plus, it was too early for me! Sheesh! :)

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I'm looking foward to Christmas. The holidays can be hard sometimes, but Ryan helps me find joy around this time of year. He kind of turns into a little kid around Christmas time and that makes me get more into the Christmas spirit. We went out on Black Friday and ordered a new TV for our Christmas gift to each other. It should arrive this Saturday. They're also going to haul away our old TV for free. YAY! We can't wait. Our old TV is dying fast. :-/ I'm working on Christmas shopping now, but it's hard this year! I think I'm pretty much done with James, Joey, and Nory, but I have no idea what to get for several people on my list. I just want to get everyone exactly what they want but it's hard to know what is going to give them that special feeling inside. Haha! I'm such a dork. We still need to put up our tree. I think every person we KNOW put their tree up right around Thanksgiving. We need to get on it before Christmas has come and gone.

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We got new neighbors on Saturday. We got quite the announcement that they were here last night. Well, technically really early this morning. Around 5:15 we both woke up from a knocking on our neighbors back door. The pounding went on for a few minutes. We then heard her go to the front door and try there. She came back to the back sliding glass door and continued to pound on it. Somehow she got locked out at 5:15am?! She continued to pound and to scream "JONATHAN!!!!?" pound! pound! pound! "JONATHAN!!!" Um, yeah. The pounding and yelling went on for about 30 minutes, which at that point we were completely awake. By the time I fell asleep again Ryan's alarm was going off at 6:30. ugggghhh. was JONATHAN in a freakin' COMA or something?! I really hope they made like 7 copies of their keys today. I'm also glad I didn't see her this morning cuz I might've just ran up to her face and screamed "JONATHAAAN!" at her. UGH!
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Well, it's 10:40 now so I suppose I should go brush my teeth and get ready for bed. Ryan demolished my Typing Maniac score, so I need to rest up tonight so that I can maybe try to beat it tomorrow. :) I honestly didn't think he could beat me. But he did. I am ashamed. Goodnight!

Hey, that looks familiar!

2009-10-26T19:50:00.000-07:00

So, I love NatalieDee.com and her comics. Some of them are sooo funny and they're pretty much all off the wall. Her husband does toothpastefordinner.com which is another great one. They're obviously a pretty hilarious couple. Anyway, I check Natalie Dee pretty much every day to see the new comic of the day. Some of them are lame but the ones that are good are really great. Anyway, I went to check today and yesterday's was up, too:

And I was thinking.. hmmm.. That looks familiar!

Then I realized what it reminded me of. Like a year ago, maybe more, Rachel showed me how to knit. We just started with some cheapy yarn that she had and i was going to make a "wash cloth" (aka SQUARE), just to practice. That way it would be an easy pattern and wouldn't use up much yarn at all. I practiced and didn't really get addicted like the girls did, so it stayed at home for a long time. They never taught me how to bind it off so I never finished. It looks almost EXACTLY like the comic, even the nice blue needles. hahaha! Awesome.

I just need to add a sad face to it! HAHA!

If you go to her site, just start hitting "Random Comic" and you're bound to find something funny (or offensive!) :)

PS. Mondays suck. I hate football.

Weekend

2009-10-25T22:17:00.000-07:00

We slept wayyy in yesterday and then we stayed up really late last night (2:45am?) so we skipped church today, too. I slept in today as well. Somehow I was still tired this evening so I laid on the floor. "Ryan, don't let me fall asleep for an hour and a half again" (like I had last weekend). That was around 5:30. Around 7 I woke up to Ryan with a plate of cookies in my face "YOU WANT A COOKIE?! I know I wasn't supposed to let you sleep for long. Sorry". hahaha. Apparently he made cookies (pre-made dough) and I slept through the sound and the SMELL. hmmm. What can I say? Football ALL FREAKING DAY lulled me straight into a boredom coma.

Anyway, we were home basically all day so I got a loootttt of laundry done. So that's good. As for the rest of the house, I can't say much for it. It pretty much looks like a tornato went through it. I did manage to do all of our laundry (load finished in the dryer waiting for me right now), and our dishes, too. I finished up my pumpkin for work, too. I made a witch. She turned out cute. I'll post it along with the website so you can go VOTE FOR ME so I can win a nice prize. :) After I woke up from my nap Lynae called so that I could Skype with them and see my boys in their matching jammies that I found at Target for them. They were really cute and cheap and matching so I HAAAD to get them. :) We watched an ep of Lost - Flashes Before Your Eyes - a classic. :)

I love my boys so much. I'm glad I got to see them on Skype today since I didn't get to see them at church. Last night I went with Lynae to Erika's house for a girl's night. It was fun. We made pumpkins and watched the office, mostly. I finally got to hold my Joey-pie for a good chunk of the evening and James joined us later, too. He's so cute and funny. He is so cute with Jordan. They have really funny conversations and they're really sweet together. Jordan is so cute and likes to be very helpful with everything. What a sweetie. Welp, all that's left to do today is pay all of our bills and get those out of the way and then we will go to BED!

Doc appt update

2009-10-15T16:00:00.000-07:00

I just got back from the doctor about 15 mins ago. Now I am about to enjoy an episode of Ellen. :) I had an appointment with Mitch and then with Dr. Johnson right afterward so I just took the 2nd half of the day off. It also gave me about an hour in the afternoon to rest and unwind! (it's 4-ish now instead of 5-ish when I'd normally be getting home).

So, basically after I stopped doing hyperbaric I started on a new med, amoxicillin. They told me that for about a month after stopping hyperbaric treatment that I could still benefit from it. Within a few days of starting the amox, I got a reaction that could indicate lyme. As the bacteria dies off, it dies off at a fast rate and your body can't process it very fast. In turn, you can notice an intensification in your symptoms and that's exactly what happened to me. BUT, it only happened for about two weeks or so. I have a feeling it was the combination of the benefits of hyperbaric and the amoxicillin.

So, after meeting with Mitch and Dr. Johnson, this is what the new plan is! First they're going to take me off of clarithromycin and put me on I think Flagyl? Now I can't remember. Anyway, I'm not sure exactly why they're changing it but if they think it's the right move I'm fine with that. I think the amoxicillin is working well so I'm glad they didn't take me off of that. I think flagyl is just another antibiotic but I think it works a little bit differently. AND it can penetrate tissues and cells which is where the lyme bacteria (or "buggies" as I like to say) like to hide out sometimes. So it will probably be a good change.

They're also going to let me do hyperbaric for two weeks (maybe more if it's working, I hope!). I really, really hope that this finally going to be the "trick". :) Pray, pray, and pray some more that it'll work! I will do hyperbaric 5 days a week and then 3 days a week they're going to keep me there 20 mins longer and do something called light therapy. They'll do it on my hands first but if it works they'll do my feet, ankles, knees, etc. It basically is a localized treatment that blocks inflammation. So we'll see how that goes. He seems pretty excited about it.

He told me something else interesting. I asked him if I'd have to take my wedding and engagement rings off for the light therapy because basically, they're STUCK on my finger. He asked me if it was due to swelling and I told him I didn't think it was swelling - I've just gained a lot of weight since we got married 3 1/2 years ago. He told me that weight gain is something they often see in Lyme patients. (Whaaat??) I told him that I think a lot of it is due to me not doing much movement or exercise during the day because I tend to be really sore afterward (and my fatigue factors in, too). He told me that there might be a possiblity of an actual SLOW DOWN in my metabolism from the lyme. Another thought is that the toxins actually hang out in the fat cells which can cause the extra weight. Sometimes when people lose weight, as the fat cells shrink down the toxins are released and their symptoms can intensify. Pretty crazy!

So, I'm trying to be hopeful with the new stuff we'll be trying. I am really thankful that I get to go into the hyperbaric chamber for a weeks, too. I want this to work!

Rayms

2009-10-13T11:44:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about how funny James is now that he's talking a whole bunch. I thought I'd share a few funny stories / conversations.
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James: ouch!
Me: Oh, sorry hun. I scratched you with my ring.
James: Your ring?
Me: Yeah, see? Uncle Ryan gave this to me when we got married.
James: I want you to get married!
Me: We are already married, silly! Do you want to get married someday?
James: YEAH!
Me: Who do you want to marry?
James: Ummmm... DADDY!
Me: haha! I don't think you can marry daddy. You need to pick a girl to marry. What about Jordan?
James: YEAHHHH!
Me: Who should Josiah marry?
James: JORDAN!
Me: He can't marry Jordan if YOU'RE marrying her. How about Norah?
James: YEAH! NORAH! Where's my ring??? (looking and his tiny cute fingers) :)
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We went out for pizza with the Condits after church on Sunday.

We sit down, immediately James says,

"where's my pizza?"
Us: They're still cooking it, James.
James: Where?
Me: back there in those big ovens
James: I can't hear it!!! (hand by his ear, leaning over toward the kitchen)
Me: Can you smell it?
James: Yeah. Where's my pizza?

James also introduced his new impression of The Count to me while we were eating. It's SOOOOO cute! "a-one, a-two, ah ah ah!" I love it.

When we were leaving after pizza, we were all getting in our cars and saying Bye. James says, "Byyye! We should do it again sometime!" Love it.
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So, I Skyped (web cam) with James for the first time last week. He was so cute. The main part of your screen is the other person and then there's a little "Me-Cam" in the corner and it shows yourself so that you can see if you're on screen and stuff. James was obsessed with the little picture of himself. "Is that Rayms?" (He can't quite say his J sound yet so he calls himself Rayms). We'd ask him "are you talking to Aunt Lee Lee on the computer?" and he'd say "I want to talk to Rayms!" Every once in a while I'd just see his forehead in front of the camera which meant he was looking closely at the picture of himself. Later he was spacing out on his picture and demanded, "Rayms! Talk to me!" I don't think he understood that there weren't TWO James', but it was just himself on camera. HAHA! Joey woke up and Nae put the computer and James in Josiah's crib with him so I got to see both of them. The only downside was that I couldn't hug and kiss them. :( Luckily on Sunday I got to spend a good chunk of the day with them while Ryan and Seth played frisbee golf with Tones. It was so fun!

Self-discipline

2009-10-02T11:59:00.000-07:00

I have put no "structure" into my life besides my work schedule. I think I wouldn't go so crazy and I wouldn't have such a mess around all the time if I structured my week better. It just needs to be small things. I was thinking of making one night "clean the bathroom" night and a few days a week "do the dang laundry" day. I'd also need a "put away the dang laundry" day, because I'm SO bad about that. I just have a pile for EVER sitting in the laundry basket, in front of the couch, or upstairs on our bedroom floor. If I had a chore system then maybe I wouldn't get behind on stuff. It's just hard to tell what we'll be doing each night (although our weeknights are usually pretty open), or how I will be feeling each day.

I decided to start a not-very-strict diet/exercise plan this past Monday. I can't go crazy or I will not stick with it. Also, with exercise, I just have to do what I can because I get sore and tired from basically NOTHING! So I kind of just have to take baby steps toward better health and hopefully losing some weight. My weight has skyrocketed and I'm sure it's contributed to worsened symptoms and also not so great of a self-image. So I made a calendar for this week and the next 3 weeks of my lunches, Ryan's dinners and my dinners. Some of our dinners are the same but Ryan is really picky so often times if I want to eat healthy I have to make two separate dinners. I generally choose easy stuff for both dinners if I make two meals or else I'd go crazy. Anyway, with a food schedule/outline it helps me stick to the plan more easily and I get the groceries ahead of time which makes it much easier! I think I should definitely plan a weeks worth of groceries ahead of time no matter what. It makes it easier if I don't have to run to the grocery store after work for just a few things and it will probably also help me to make healthy choices and not just resort to the most convenient thing (which sometimes means driving through Taco Bell).

I've also been setting my alarm earlier to go on a walk before work. I only walk about a mile but I think the "structure" of starting the day the same each morning will help the other plans during the day fall into place. It'll hopefully put me in a more self-disciplined mindset. So far this week I walked Tues, Wed, and today. 3 out of 5 is okay with me. I'd like to do 4 - 5 though. I want to try to talk Ryan into taking a walk with me in the evening before it gets too rainy. My walks have been good so far. I used to listen to my ipod but I haven't updated it forever so I've just been walking, listening to my brain instead. Haha. It's good though because it gives me time to think before the day starts and it also gives me time to pray and reflect on Gods will. If I don't make time for things like that it doesn't happen. I don't know why I can make time for sleep, watching TV, cooking, etc, but not for God. Why does it seem harder than the other things? I don't know. But that is another - and the most important thing - that I need to have more self-discipline about.

So, besides exercise, food, and chores I would like to schedule in quiet time. I want at least once a week to set aside time before bed to read the bible and pray WITH Ryan. Soon I would also like to get up earlier and read the bible before I take my morning walk. I'm sick of just being a "Sunday Christian" with that being the only time that I read the bible. And if I just pray all the time but never pick up the bible (aka GOD'S WORD!), that's kind of a one-sided conversation, right?

Anyway, I neeeeeeeeed to set up more structure in my life and have more self-discipline when it comes to pretty much all aspects of my life. It's going to begin with being clear on what God wants for me, so I suppose I need to start there.

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Anyway, tonight I'm watching Jamesie from after work til around bed-time. He's sooo cute! Nae's going to an art reception tonight where she has some of her art pieces submitted. James is at preschool and then he'll ride his lil bus over to Playcare. I'm picking him up from Playcare after work and then he'll hang out with me and go night night at my house. Robin lent me Finding Nemo and Over the Hedge in case Jamesie wants to watch something. The only kid movie we have is Shrek and that's what we watched last time he came over. I can't wait to hang out with him! :) He's sooo cute these days and he says the funniest stuff.

Ryan is leaving for Reno tomorrow morning for a bowling tournament with his mom. They'll just be gone overnight. Hopefully I will get some stuff done while he's gone. I tend to do better at attacking the chores and cleaning the house when he's gone for some reason. At the same time, the time will probably go by pretty fast. I hope Ryan and Tammy have fun and do well in their tournament! They'll be squeezing in some gambling, too, I'm sure. :) I love my Ry-ry sooo much. He's always willing to listen to me and he's really sweet with me. He's also really funny and fun to spend time with. :) He's the best!

Quick health update

2009-10-01T19:46:00.000-07:00

I had some intensification with my symptoms for about two weeks which would indicate that the meds and/or effects of the hyperbaric chamber were killing off the lyme bacteria. I haven't had the same type of intensification for several weeks now, although I have been sore (as usual), more tired than usual, and I've had some headaches here and there as well. I emailed Mitch and Joanne about possibly going in the hyperbaric chamber again. I think that the combination of hyperbaric and the 2 antibiotics that I am now on could really attack the bacteria better. They told me that the effects of hyperbaric can still help me for about a month after I stop the hyperbaric treatments. During that month I started the second, more powerful (and higher dose) antibiotic and that is when I experience the herxing. That's why I want to do hyperbaric treamtent AND antibiotics at the same time this time. I have an appointment with Mitch and then Mitch and my doctor together in two weeks from today. Hopefully they will be open to me going into the hyperbaric chamber again. In the last week I've felt really yucky but it's not the same as before. I'm not sure if it's my meds or if I'd just feel this way anyway. BLEH. It sucks though because I have NO energy or motivation.

Anyway, it's time for Flash Forward so I must be going!!!!!!!!!!

Aunt and Uncle Robot :)

2009-09-27T17:47:00.001-07:00

Nae, I promised James he could see these pictures. Wanna show them to him? HAHAHA!

Just some fun at the toy store in Mendocino!

Wicked

2009-09-25T16:14:00.000-07:00

I forgot to blog about our little day trip to San Francisco! Two weekends ago Ryan, Tammy and I went to San Francisco to see the broadway musical Wicked. It is described as the "untold story of the witches of Oz". It was really good! I didn't grow up seeing musicals, and I still don't like watching musical movies, but I enjoyed Wicked very much. They kind of portray the wicked witch of the west and GOOD, and Glenda as sort of mean/stuck up. It starts from school age - like maybe highschool age, until their "current" adult age. The girl who played the green witch was the main girls understudy, but you never would have known it! I wouldn't have realized that if we hadn't read the insert in the brochure. She was a very good singer. She was a bit of an "over actor" when she wasn't singing but I think that's how broadway is supposed to be. It didn't bother me too much. She was REALLY good. Glinda was WAY funny and I liked her big, beautiful dress at the beginning and end, too.

After the play we took the bart back to the Concord area where we started and went to dinner at Black Angus steakhouse. It was REALLY good and we were dang hungry because we didn't grab lunch before the play. eek!

Anyway, it was the day after Tammy's birthday, and her friend Debbie had the restaurant people sing her a birthday song which she HATES. But, we did get a free delish dessert which was amazing. I hope she had a good time - I think she did. It was a long trip for one day but we had a BLAST! :) I didn't get any pictures, but Tammy wouldn't have allowed me to get any of her anyway. wink

Vacay, houses, work, oh my!

2009-09-24T18:24:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we went to Mendocino with the Condit fam, the Lefebvres and another couple who are friends with the Lefebvres. We had a great time! We spent a lot of time at the beach and around the shops in downtown Mendocino. We visited the infamous chocolate shop where we ordered a chocolate & mint hunk of chocolate which was AMAZING, and of course the hunk of white chocolate with real, fresh raspberries in it. At the beach we relaxed, played with James, held the babies, saw a doggie on a surf board, got a good amount of sunshine, and lots of sand in my purse & cell phone (and James' diaper).

The babies got up VERY early so we came back a bit tired, but it was worth it. James woke us all up the first morning at about 20 mins til 7. I didn't want to be up that early but at the same time, I had fun listening to James' cute little voice for 20 mins before I got up. He's so funny lately and he's talking A LOT. I love that little guy so much! Waking up early also got as a good, early start which meant more time during the day to hang out. I was tired though and gave having more than just 1 kid a second thought for a moment. :)

Here's James in his sand "chair"

Here's Joey bundled up at the beach :)

James' SAND sock line from the first day playing on the beach

We saw some horses while we were at the beach. When we pointed them out to James he said "I WANT TO PLAY WITH THEM!" Haha. I pictured him playing fetch with them or something. Seth took him over there and he got to sit on one of them. He was so cute! He kept leaning down and hugging them. It was so sweet.

The Lefebvres & Co. caught up with us at the beach after they went on a hike. Here are their cutie's. Lucy Lefebvre, and Cason who is the son of Ashley's friend Robin.

Aw, what a sweet couple. Orrr, wait... is Lucy already betrothed to Josiah? Or is that Nory? I always lose track.

Joey and James both got to take their naps at the beach. Ryan said that James' legs looked like when the wicked witch of the east got killed by the flying house (see the striped "socks).

We stayed in the Garden Cabin which features a big garden behind it. Lynae took James out there for a photo shoot and he loved exploring. Here he is being a sweet, curious little boy wondering, "what's in here??"

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So, we got a letter in the mail today stating that we did NOT qualify for the CHIP home that we applied for. :( It's kind of a let down since it's something we were looking foward to, and it wouldn't mean house hunting and all that stuff. But if it wasn't meant to be, then it wasn't. We were disappointed but at the same time, we both felt comfortable with the outcome. They denied us based on income. We don't make enough to qualify. I'm guessing that means they compared our income to what our payments would've been and we couldn't quite cut it. I thought that if the houses ended up being more than 200,000 that the payments would be a little bit too high for us. Maybe not if we got the first time buyers loan but I guess they wouldn't take that in to account if they weren't sure that we'd apply. I suppose we'll keep our eye on the mls listings and pray about our options. :)

So, at work we've been looking for a new office to move into and OUT of our tiny, non-creative, crap-fest of an office that we're in now. It's not as bad as I'm making it out to be, but it's definitely not a "creative atmosphere" which I believe is what our designers need. ANYWAY! A few days ago we looked at an office that is up for lease in downtown Chico. It has pretty much EVERYTHING we want in it. We wanted somewhere downtown for convenience sake, we wanted a more creative atmosphere, we wanted something bigger with a few offices within the space for my boss to have her own office and to use the additional offices as meeting rooms. This one has one big area where desks can go, another small area (lounge area?), two private offices in the middle, two private offices in the back, one big area that can be closed off for meetings in the front, and a place for our servers. It's way bigger, and it's SOOO BEAUTIFUL in there! I would MOVE there if I could afford it. :) It's in one of the upstairs buildings in downtown and it has windows that open up toward the street. It has tall ceilings, partial brick walls inside, small back patio, and SKY LIGHTS! It's pretty much amazing. It's also cheaper than most of the other places we've looked at and it's WAY nicer. All of us are in love with it except, of course, my boss. I can't really pinpoint what her problem is with it except for really small, minor details. You have to climb stairs and she buys a couple of bags of groceries each monday that she'd have to lug up there. We'd have to get three additional parking spaces in the parking structure. She said she felt like it was hot in there. There is a thermostat in there so no matter how hot it was we could make it comfy, first of all. Secondly, I saw that it was set to 76 whereas it's usually anywhere between 78 - 80 degrees in our office because apparently she has weird temperature issues or something. Anyway, I'm just bummed that she doesn't like it but luckily she doesn't make the final decision - the owners of the company do. Mark, one of the owners came to Chico today from Mt. View to see the building and take some measurements. I'll have to see what he thinks of it later because I left while they were still over there today. I hope we get it. It's SUH-WEET!

Well, that's about it. I'll leave you with a funny little James story. My mom told me that she sometimes calls my dad "honey". James is over there once a week while Nae & Seth have date night. James was over there the other night and right now he's in that stage where he repeats EVERYTHING! It's also almost like he hears everything, too. Anyway, he started saying "come on, Honey" to my DAD! BAHAHAHA! Hilarious. It's so cute to picture tiny Jamesie calling my dad "honey". :) Kids are sooooo cute!

Here and There

2009-09-08T21:13:00.000-07:00

My Blog entry doesn't deserve a "themed" title because I'm not sure what I'm going to talk about yet. :) I just wanted to blog about what's been going on and what's coming up.

We just had a 3 day weekend which was pretty cool. I like having an extra day off but especially if Ryan gets that day off, too. Friday evening I went to Lynae's house to watch James and Josiah for a couple of hours while she helped Seth clean up outside and work on the house. They're putting in new siding and just working on fixing up their house. It's going to look pretty good when it's done! It's kinda fun to watch the process. Seth is pretty proud of his work. :) As he should be - I think he's been working really hard at work all day and then really hard on the house all evening. The inside has looked good for a while now, so they're moving to the outside stuff now. Watching the boys was fun! It wasn't stressful at all since it was only a couple of hours and I knew that both parents were there in case something went awry. Josiah slept for a little while so I played with James in his room. He always says funny things and he's quite entertaining. After Joey woke up James decided he wanted to watch a movie so we hung out in their spare room watching sesame street movies. He told me he wanted to watch "The Healthy One" which is what he calls one of the Elmo movies that talk about eating your veggies & being active. For some reason he loves that one. He wasn't exactly pronouncing his words very clearly so for about 5 mins I was trying to figure out what he was saying. Luckily it was the first one I picked up so I finally figured out what he meant. We watched it 3 times. Yeahhh. Even Joey got into the movie a little bit. When he started getting cranky I'd turn him around and he was pretty happy watching Elmo. Oh no. It begins.

Saturday was our lazy day. We went out to lunch, or more like "Linner" at Applebees. We went when all of the oldsters go at like 4:00. We sat around saying "what should we do today" but didn't end up doing much. We watched some Lost and went for a walk... did stuff around the house. Yeah.

Sunday after church Nae went to a winery with my parents. She took Joey with her and I watched James at my house. He thinks my house is pretty exciting - mostly because it's something different and he doesn't come here very often (we're usually at his house instead). The whole way here he asked "where are we going???" He's sucha cutie. He LOVES Uncle Ryan. Ryan entertained him in the car the whole way home. They're pretty cute together. :)

Yesterday we slept WAY in and figured we would probably have another lazy day. But in the afternoon Lynae called us and invited us over for a BBQ at their house. Dustin and Uncle Paul were helping Seth on the house so they were going to BBQ after they finished up for the day. They decided to make it a "party" and invite everyone. It was fun just socializing and seeing all of the babies. I'm glad we didn't just sit around all day again.

Since we slept in pretty late and I also had a mountain dew around 4-ish, I TOTALLY didn't sleep well last night. I don't do well if I have caffeine after, say, noon-ish. I try to cut it off by 2:00pm. If I don't I generally don't sleep well. And it definitely affected me last night. I also caught a cold. My eyes have been burning all day! Today I've been pretty tired and I have a big fat headache right now. Over all the weekend was fun, and going back to work is kinda BLEH. The weekend went by too fast, of course. But at least this work week will only be 4 days long!

Anyway, we have a few little fun things coming up. Next Friday is Tammy's birthday and we're going to San Francisco from Saturday til Sunday. We're going to see Wicked (it's the "untold story of the witches of Oz.") It's a broadway musical and I've heard it's pretty good. That will be exciting. Ryan probably won't let us go shopping. :( UGH. Jerkface.

The following weekend we're taking Friday off and heading to Mendocino with Lynae and Seth (and the boys!), Adam & Ash (and Lucy!), and another couple who are friends with the Lefebvres. They also have a little boy I think. Yep, we'll be the only ones without kids. Haha! But that's okay. I don't know how pumped Ryan is about being around babies all weekend but I am! He is excited though because he doesn't see Adam as much as he'd like and I know that he's missed him being around a lot since he moved away from town a few years back. Also, hopefully having a second pair of fresh hands around (who don't have to care for their own kids yet) will be a big help to everyone. It'll be a fun little vacation. We're staying at The Lords Land.

It used to be a little hippie commune back in the day. Haha! It's kind of a funny place. But it's also really pretty around there and the cabins are cozy. I can't wait to see the ocean and go to the chocolate shop and spend time with our friends and the babies.

A couple of weeks after we get back from Mendocino, Ryan is going to a bowling tournament in Reno with Tammy. I think I'll stay home since watching bowling and then gambling sounds a little bit boring to me. :) But I'm glad they'll get some time to spend together and time to have some FUN! And maybe they'll even win some money like last time. They're both pretty good bowlers!

Ryan has been talking about possibly taking a week of in November just to get a good break from work. He's thinking November because that's when it will slow down for a little while at work. I might take some time off too to be with him. I'd like to go on a little vacation during that time but I can't think of something that we'll both like. Lately he's been kind of hating some aspects of work. He's been dealing with petty little fights between his employees. I don't think he likes the "babysitting" part of his new job title. I think he's hoping for a change - either be promoted to Supervisor (possibility - but not 100% counting on that), and what I think he prefers even more is for them to hire a supervisor, and then he can stay the Asst. Supervisor, still get experience and some say, but not necessarily have to deal with every single problem that goes on. That would be pretty ideal and we've been keeping one of those situations in our prayers lately. He has been really blessed in his job and we don't want to take that for granted AT ALL. I also just want him to be happy in whatever position he's in and not just go for the highest paying option.

So far we haven't heard anything from the CHIP home people yet. I wish we knew at least WHEN we'd know, you know? Haha! Seriously - I hate waiting. Also, not much "herxing" going on lately. My migrating specific spots of pain kinda subsided. I feel pretty much like my "normal" (not-so-normal) self with the exception of more frequent headaches and I've also been more tired than normal lately. I really hope that the meds are still working. I'm waiting to hear back from Mitch to see if he wants to make any changes to my treatment or if we should keep on going with my current dosage and stuff. I don't think they will up the dose or anything, but I have wondered if he might want me to go back into the hyperbaric chamber for another round. I wouldn't mind doing that because in my mind, anything helps. I'd rather attack it and get rid of it even if it means I'm sick for a little while. I just want it to be GONE!

So, that's what's been up with us lately. I'm looking forward to Autumn in some ways, but in other ways I'm sad to lose the summer days. Apple Chai at Starbucks, scarves, and sweaters will be a nice change but I will sure miss doing BBQ's and going swimming and things like that.

That's it. I'll leave you with some cutie pie pictures of my favorite beh-behs.

Cutie-pie Joey at Grandma's Birthday Party

James' pizza-face :) Yummm.

Josiah laughing! :)

Little Nory-pie smiling! :)

Art

2009-08-27T20:38:00.000-07:00

I have this yearning for an artistic outlet. I kinda have a split personality (but not in the crazy freak sort of way). The job I have now is completely the furthest from "artistic" as you can get. I spend MOST of my day typing - mostly numbers, and some words. I look at a paper and translate it into a database. I enter the info from the paper into the database. Wow. Lame. It's weird because I work for a graphic design company and everyone around me has an "artistic" mindset. Even though my job is completely boring and far from that mindset, I still KNOW for a fact that I have an artistic person inside of me.

I wish that I could find the specific type of "art" that I'm supposed to do. In highschool I considered graphic design as a potential future occupation. I don't know now that I would like it very much. I do think I would be good at it because I have the "technical" mindset squared away and I also have an artistic yearning inside of me. I've always thought that being a pastry chef or even ANY kind of chef would be SO FUN. I would love to paint and wish that I had ANY skill involving painting or drawing. I really really really do NOT have any skill in that area. Making jewelry has been something I've really wanted to do for the past couple of years. I bought a bunch of beads and some books but I've only made a few pieces of jewelry. I think what it comes down to is that my logical side convinces my artistic side that it's not "good enough" to succeed. It's because making good art takes RISK and part of me won't let myself do that. (It also takes lots of MONEY sometimes!) I love to watch So You Think You Can Dance and I always loved going to my friend's dance recitals as a kid. I love going to Glazed Creations and painting pottery!!! I look at Etsy.com (my favie website - all handmade stuff for sale), and dream of making beautiful things like the things that are on there. I love shopping and looking at clothes. I feel like when I see a really nice print on a shirt or a well structured dress or a beautiful blouse it's like looking at a beautiful painting for me. (Now if it only looked as good as I'd like it to look ON me.) :) I have an artistic person STUCK inside of me and I have no idea how to let it out. I like it all - yet I only have a tiny big of skill. Somehow I need to figure out how to hone in on whatever skills I have and just as importantly, learn how to develop them. I need that outlet!

Sometimes I just want to take out a piece of paper and some paint and paint something. It ends up being the same rainbow with the clouds on either side or "happy tree" that I used to paint as a kid. Either that or I just streak a bunch of colors across the page. Sometimes the color ones turn out nice... but what am I going to do with it? I mean, seriously, we're talking like... a piece of computer paper and some WATERCOLORS.

Last time I busted out the paper & paint for some art "outlet" time, this is what came of it... a beautiful portrait of me and Ryan:

Ryan loved my painting so much that he hung it on our refrigerator

(using the strategically place magnets, as you can see).

He's a doll.

As you can see, I probably shouldn't pursue painting as a long-term career choice or even as a hobby. :)

Muahahaaa (evil laugh)

2009-08-24T21:47:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have husbands who are addicted to sports, you will enjoy this. I suppose I'm mostly talking to Teryn.

Anyway, tonight my feet started to hurt pretty bad. Somewhere at the "top" (I learned that's actually the BEGINNING, not the END) of the 13 inning of today's Giants game, I decided to ask Ryan for a foot massage. Yes - I said 13th as in thirteenth inning. I know - you're thinking, "there are only supposed to be what, 9-ish, right??" WELLLL. This game has made it to at least the THIRTEENTH INNING!!! So, he says "will the Giants win if I give you a foot massage?" and I say "Only if you do a reallllyyy good job". Yes, ladies, I have found a way to get a GOOD foot massage with some passion behind it! Haha! He would get all worked up and excited about the pitch and say "c'mon! c'mon! You can dooo it!!" Meanwhile, he'd be crushing my foot in anticipation - hoping and dreaming that the harder he massages my feet the more it will push his players into hitting home runs. And THEN, if they suck and make a terrible hit, he would get all worked up and upset and he'd massage my foot out of ANGER. Hahaha! WIN-WIN! :)

I thought I'd share because it made me laugh. Maybe pointless to you but I thought it was pretty funny. And I'll definitely try to use it to my advantage in the future.

Oh - btw - we've just moved into the 14th inning. YAY FOR ME.

Watching Jamesie tonight :)

2009-08-22T21:48:00.000-07:00

Tonight I watched James over at Nae's house and Lance was there, too. First, I must say that Lance is really growing up and maturing. He just kind of does his own thing. He's got his dinner routine down, he knows how to entertain himself, etc. I also don't know if I mentioned this already but I saw him change James' diaper a couple of months ago and he's a PRO! And he stepped right up to do it without complaints. Luckily, the one I saw wasn't too yucky of a diaper but he still did a really good job of cleaning up Jamesie. It was pretty sweet - despite the poo poo. I still get nervous changing diapers and I never know if I did it right. I suppose they stay on well enough to do their job, but I always wonder if they're too tight? Too lose? Lopsided? Either way they never seem right. I can at least now tell the front from the back. That was until I came across the Swim Diaper which apparently has no back or front - it just goes on either way. Thanks for confusing me right when I sorta get it down, Diapers!

Anyway, I also told my mom recently when she had a few days in a row of not feeling well, that she could let me know if she needed help with Lance. She said "he's so good". It's just nice to know that at least lately she's had some peace with him. It was hard growing up with him and I know it was hard on my mom and and the rest of us, too. There's not really a way to explain it until you've lived it. There are good and bad sides to having a family member with a disability. And I still don't think that my parents' days with Lance are "easy" but I'm just pretty proud to hear that he's matured a lot over the years. He's really sweet with the boys (James and Joey) and just likes to be helpful. It's funny - I was going to go online a few days ago, and I opened up internet explorer and it defaults to like a Yahoo homepage. It has news and different stuff on it. Well, there was a story about a girl on there - I think the headline was something like "Always hungry, all the time". I clicked on it and it was a little glimpse of this girl's life with Prader-Willi Syndrome and a little bit of a look into her daily life. That being, her parents locking the cabinets at home, her having to live in a group home most of the time to control her diet, and her gaining 25 pounds on her week long visit home. Yeah, yeah, stuff I've heard before, right? The news lady that was kind of interviewing her and her family said to the other news woman "I spent the day with a woman who is always - and this is no exaggeration, this is not a metaphor - ALWAYS HUNGRY." and later "some people say the have an 'insatiable appetite' but what if it was literally true??" She later talked about how there are some meds available that help things like obsessive compulsive habits such but - the words she used - "the hunger remains". It's just SO WEIRD because I've grown up with Lance all of my life. I've known that he is always hungry, never full. The "need" for food never goes away. But for some reason, somehow, I didn't REALIZE what that meant until I heard someone else's story and the words coming from someone else's mouth. It's so weird. I just kind of caught me off guard I guess. I mean, I think I grew up at times thinking "We have it so hard as siblings of a person with Prader-Willi Syndrome" or "oh, my mom and dad have it so hard having to care for Lance day in and day out". Those things are true - it's very hard sometimes and I know that is/was especially true for my mom. But I guess I've rarely thought about it from LANCE'S point of view. How hard it is for HIM to constantly have the struggle going on in his mind. He has the tendencies to want (or even NEED) to eat, eat, eat, must... find... food. But another side of him, I'm sure, wishes to be RID of that need. I think it's probably a constant battle for him. It's not something he can control - maybe he can control 10% of it, I don't know, I don't want to put a number on it. But it's not really something he can "teach" himself to stop doing/wanting/needing. I just wanted to say publicly that I'm proud of him. I never thought Lance would "grow up" but in a lot of ways he has.

ANYWAY! The post was supposed to be about my time with Jamesie tonight and turned into a Lance post. Oh well. :) So, tonight I got to watch Jamesie because Lynae and Seth were going to Lynae's 10 year highschool reunion tonight (eekkk!). Josiah went over to my Grandma's house so that I wouldn't have to have Lance, Joey, AND James. I suppose I could've handled it but I'm sure "great-grams" loved some Josiah time. :) When Nae first told me Joey would be with Grandma I kind of thought to myself "aww, dang." I love Jamesie with all of my heart, but I'll just say it - Josiah snuggles more these days - yes, kind of because he has to since he doesn't have the strength to pull away from me yet. But still, I get to hug him the WHOLE TIME! James used to be my little snuggle bug but now that he's getting older he likes to have his personal space. Ugh. :) Still, I was happy to watch James because I love him sooo much. It turned out to be WONDERFUL! I asked him what he wanted to do. "Watch ELMO in the moobie woom!" (movie room). "Okay!!!" James watched Elmo while I went on Facebook and checked my email and all of my various portals. He would get so excited if I sang along with a song on the movie or danced or clapped my hands. I LOVE how easily entertained he is and also how much he loves music. (BTW, I really think he has a good natural beat and probably some sort of musical gift in his future). The couch was folded out into a bed in the "movie room" (the guest bedroom) so that's what we were laying on while watching Elmo. James actual SNUGGLED with me and let me rub his hair and give him kisses. Lately he's been saying "NO AUNT LEE LEE!" when I try to snuggle him. But for some reason tonight he let me. And we just had such a blast together watching Elmo. I know that sounds really funny but it was quality time with JUST James that I hadn't had in a while. I had so much fun lovin' him and being his aunt Leelee. :)

A little while before I put him to bed I decided to see if he wanted some yogurt since he had barfed up some of his dinner. It sucks when that happens because I'm sure he gets hungry again like 30 mins later. So I fed him some yogurt - should've stopped there. I figured he was still hungry and asked him if he wanted some "okey sticks" (aka "turkey sticks" aka rolled up pieces of lunch meat). He did. He didn't throw up. Yayy! Since we had watched several Elmo movies, I thought maybe it'd be fun to give him a bath and let him splash around and play with his bath toys. I brought him into his room and put him on his bed to finish drying him off and to put his diaper and jammies on. For some reason he started gagging and barfing. Aaahhhh! I caught what I could with the towel but some of it got on his bed. Then he just kept going! I brought him off of his bed onto the floor. I caught some more of it in the towel but some got on his little ikea rug. Dang it! Several more hurls later the towel was full and his tummy was covered in vomit. :( Back into the bath!!! I screamed for Lance so that he could get his sippy cup which sometimes helps him stop vomiting. Lance wasn't responding and I was guessing that he was just ignoring me. Turns out he was on the potty. "LAAANNNCCEEE!" He comes in a couple of minutes later. "What?! I had to cut myself off!" HAHAHA! wow. TMI. He watched James in the tub while I cleaned up. I came back and I thought James was crying but it turns out he was cracking up and him and "Adu Ubby" (uncle Lance) were having a blast. So cute. :) I got James to bed after that and he fell asleep pretty quickly. But not until after he played with my ears and poked my face. Sounds weird, but it's something he's been doing forever. So cute. :)

I love my James and I had so much fun with him!!! Dealing with the mess was hard but he's worth it. Plus, Nae and Seth deal with it on a daily basis. I was glad that they had even just one less mess to deal with. It sounds like they had a fun time out without the kiddos!

Herxing

2009-08-20T11:58:00.000-07:00

I think I'm HERXING! :)

"Herx" or "Herximer Reaction": occurs when large quantaties of toxins are released into the body as bacteria (typically spirochetal bacteria -- That's what LYME is!) die due to antibiotic treatment or rapid detoxification. Typically the death of these bacteria occurs faster than the body can remove the toxins via the kidneys and liver. It's manifested by fever, chills, headache, and myalgia (muscle pain).

My doctor basically explained that for me I would probably just have an intensification of my symptoms (which would definitely include muscle pain).

For the last few weeks I've had pain in my left shoulder blade that is more intense than my regular pain. I thought that maybe I tweaked it or slept on it funny (I didn't want to get my hopes up!) but now it's lasted for a few weeks. I started a 2nd antibiotic (amoxicillin) on Friday. On Saturday the pain kind of flared up again in my left shoulder. A few hours before we went to bed, the pain kind of migrated over to the right side of my back, just under my shoulder blade (sorta like the back of my rib area). I also got a pretty bad headache for all of the evening and night. Saturday was the same story - headache all evening and pain in the same spot on the right side. Then I had a few days of "normal" - meaning MY normal, not normal-normal, with the exception of slightly more pain than usual in my left shoulderblade. Last night after work my left knee and the area right above my knee was hurting. It would kind of go from a little bit sore to quite painful. By the time we went to bed my leg was hurting pretty bad but not like "CHOP IT OFF!". During the night my leg continued to hurt and pretty much radiated to my whole left leg - enough for it to wake me up several times during the night (I kind of wanted to chop it off at that point). But I am HAPPY because I believe now that I'm truly herxing which should mean that my meds are WORKING!!! YAYYY! I'm yet to have a "good" day so we'll see. I'm waiting for that day.

So, now that I'm taking like - a bazillion pills a day - I got one of those super-dorky old lady daily pill separators/holders with "am" and "pm" slots. AHHH! But mine is actually pretty cool! You can detach each day from the rest of the days and JUST take "Monday" with you or whichever day it is. That way I don't have to lug around a huge old lady pill box in my purse. Love it! :)

Anyway, I just thought I'd give an update on my health status since there has been a change, finally. This is the first change I've had in many, many years. Yayy! Pray that this is TRULY a herx reaction and that I will soon be better.

My husband is THE BEST!

2009-08-14T12:19:00.001-07:00

I'm not sure if it was Ryan or not... It looked like him.. sounded like him... but didn't exactly ACT like him. ;-) wink wink.

Last week he had to go to a work meeting in at their Sacramento office. I figured he'd be tired and I'd have to figure out something for dinner since usually when he's tired he doesn't want to go anywhere. When I got home from work he had gotten home about 10 mins before me. He gave me a big hug which is normal, and then asked what I wanted for dinner. He said "What do you want for dinner?" I said, "I don't know, what do you want?" (normal so far... now the weird part...) "I don't know, but you pick what you want and I'll cook it tonight". WHAAAAATTT????? I wasn't sure what he wanted or what he felt confident cooking so we tried something easy - tacos. But he wanted chicken tacos instead of beef ones. Sounded good to me but we didn't have chicken. He said he'd go to the grocery store to get what we needed. He never really likes grocery shopping. He didn't even make me go WITH him! While he was at the store getting our dinner ingredients he spotted some pretty pink flowers and thought "heck, I think I'll get those for Lyndsey". When he came home with flowers after offering to cook dinner I almost died and started to question if it was really him. Or maybe he had accidentally burned my shoe collection or something and was trying to butter me up before he told me?! Haha. I always tell him that flowers are simple, cheap and make me realllyyyyy happy. So if he ever wants to "suprise" me he just has to buy like 5 dollar flowers and I'll be stoked! Somehow, he doesn't really ever think of it unless it's a special occassion... birthday, anniversary, valentines day, etc. This time, dinner, grocery shopping AND flowers for no reason! Who was this guy? I still don't know exactly what got into him that day! He said that his work day was easy because most of it was just sitting in the car and he thought he'd try to cook dinner for once since he wasn't tired. He spotted the flowers at the store and thought to himself "She's going to think I'm crazy but I'm going to get those, too". :) It made me soooo happy! I'm blessed to have such a sweetie pie for a husband. Thanks for a special, out of nowhere type of day Ryan!!!

Is that RYAN cooking?!?!?!?!

My prettiful flowers. :) :) :)

Tonight we're going on a "date" to see The Time Traveler's Wife. I can't wait!

Amoxicillin & Probenecid

2009-08-14T12:02:00.000-07:00

I started two new meds today. Amoxicillin (the penicillin, finally) & Probenecid. I'm not quite sure exactly what probenecid is, but from what I've heard and read it basically just helps that amoxicillin work better and prolongs its effects. They had me sit in the hyperbaric office today for 45 mins when I took the meds for the first time. The guy who runs the hyperbaric chamber is also an EMT or something like that, so they wanted me to be there when he was there in case I did have any sort of allergic reaction to the meds such as respitory problems or anything like that. It all went well, and now it's been about 2 hours since I took it and I'm still feeling fine. No breathing issues, itchiness or rashes. YAYYYY!

When Ryan and I picked up the meds I kind of started laughing almost hysterically at the SIZE and dosage of the meds. WOW. I'm supposed to take two capsules of the amoxicillin three times a day (6 pills total) plus one capsule 3 times daily of the probenecid (3 more pills). INSANE! Plus, I took a picture of the bottle (right) compared to a NORMAL sized bottle (left) to show you why it made me laugh so hard. I think Ryan thought I was a little bit looney. But it's seriously like a flippin' flash light or something!

DANGGG!

Anyway, I'm hoping they work and make me all better. That would be sweet. :)

Testing, Appointments, Waiting Rooms... Left and Right!

2009-08-13T11:15:00.000-07:00

So, I'll update you on my stuff first since I'm self-centered and the world revolves around me. Haha! Just kidding! Just to get it out of the way, I guess, since it's a bit boring but still exciting for ME. We finalllllyyyyy got my penicillin test done. Results were supposed to be back Monday, MAYBE Tuesday, but no one called me. So yesterday I called them to see what was up. She checked on it and called me back to tell me that the test came back NEGATIVE! So, I'm not allergic to penicillin which is great because now they can put me on a 2nd antibiotic. I believe that penicillins work slightly better than than the alternatives so hopefully it WILL work this time. She said that they'll clear it with the doc today and get it called into the pharmacy. So, I'm hoping I can start it on Friday buuuut... usually stuff takes forever so it might be next week. :( Oh well! It's been 10+ years so I think I can handle a few more days.

Anyway, there are health issues in my family left and right and it's pretty much NUTS. The last few conversations I've had with my family members are basically updates on my health, updates on their health, updates on this or that blood test, or "I have a _____ appointment next Tuesday and a ____ appointment in 2 weeks". Blah Blah BLAHHHH! I just have to keep remining myself OVER AND OVER:

2nd Corinthians 4:16-18

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

As well as the verse that my Blog title is based on:

James 4:14b

What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

In other words, the WORST thing that's ever happened to us here on earth will eventually be a blip on the radar... a mist that vanishes after a few seconds. It's hard to think of it that way since some things are so meaningful and some things even CHANGE the course of our lives here on earth forever. It's not that we're meant to forget these things or categorize them as "meaningless". It just means that when we meet God face to face, the troubles of this earth will not compare to the blessings he has for us, ETERNALLY. No more tears, no more pain, no more losing loved ones, no more surgeries, no more brokeness.

The downside... we're left waiting. Here on the scum (earth). I know there are instructions in the bible for us while we wait, but sometimes I forget about those. My heart just wants to be done with it and on to the good stuff, ya know? But I guess that is the battle I'm faced with that will eventually make me stronger and NOT tear me down no matter how much it feels like it will.

Jamesie had some weird symptoms going on a couple of days ago. Really bad instant migraine-like headaches and his eyes looked strange. Lynae got worried and figured it was shunt failure. The best thing to do was to get it checked out IMMEDIATELY, because if it was shunt failure he'd have to get into surgery as soon as possible to avoid too much water on the brain (which could actually cause brain damage if it's not taken care of). After a couple of days at Sutter Memorial hospital in Sacramento, they're releasing James today. He started acting normal again for at least 24 hours, and his fever went away for good. He didn't experience any more "episodes" of the headaches and googily eyes. They did a couple of tests on him including a 3 hour MRI last night. Everything looks normal and since he's feeling better, too, they're going to release him today. I'm glad he's all better! Lynae will be watching him closely after they get home to make sure he really IS all better. They've gone in before convinced it was shunt failure, got turned away and sent home, and was back two days later for surgery for shunt failure. Sooo, needless to say, it was definitely the right choice to get him thoroughly checked out at Sutter. They're going to see the doctor next Tuesday sort of as a follow up to all of this stuff, as well as his last surgery he had earlier this year.

My mom has also been feeling pretty yucky for several weeks now. It mostly started with "dizzy spells" here and there, eventually becoming more frequent. In the last few weeks she's had an MRI and some other testing done. They're still not quite sure what's going on with her. We don't know if it's stress/anxiety related, hormone related, or something more serious (hopefully NOT!). I've been worried about her, mostly because she worries about everyone else and I think it makes her symptoms worse sometimes. Luckily a few days here and there in the last week she's been able to take a break and get some much needed rest. I just really, really hope she gets better soon and that she doesn't end up with a "mystery disease" like me that takes 10+ years to figure out! My parents also both have some sort of cold/throat thing going on. My dad has been really stuffed up and coughing and my mom has had a really red sore throat.

Anyway, it's been quite tiring keeping up with everyone's latest "health status" and sitting here worrying about everyone, and worrying about myself. I realize that it COULD be worse and we need to be thankful for the health that we DO still have. Just seeing some of the other Lyme patients that I did hyperbaric treatment with made me realize that there are other people suffering from Lyme that have been hit much harder with it than I have.

Anyway, that's enough about that for now. We're still waiting on word about our CHIP home application. We actually have no idea when we find out whether we've been selected or not, when they're planning on building the houses, or really ANY info regarding any of that. The one thing we know is that we'll get something in the mail telling us one way or the other if they've accepted our application. I can't wait to just KNOW! :) I hope we get it.

C.H.I.P. house & test...

2009-08-10T15:29:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we got all of our paperwork together and sent in our application to hopefully recieve a chance to get a CHIP home. CHIP stands for Community Housing Improvement Program. Basically, they're building 6 homes this time in Chico. If we get the opportunity and get chosen for a house, we'll spend a certain number of hours a week (with help from friends/family, too! please!) helping to build the home. In turn, our "work" will go toward the down payment of the house, and the house will end up being much cheaper than a normal brand new house. I still have NO idea how much it will cost in the end, but I guess if we're approved then we'll find out all of the details. Hopefully if they're built before the year ends we might even qualify for the tax credit next year ($8000 bucks or something). We'll also probably end up applying for a first time buyers loan. We can probably get about 30,000 toward the home which would be payed back whenever we end up selling the house. That's pretty much how it works. Again, i don't know all of the details yet. It'd be pretty exciting to be chosen. Basically, a buunnnccchhh of people applied, and then they took out any applications that were incomplete/missing info. Ours was done correctly so we got put into the "lottery" style drawing along with all of the other people who had complete & correct applications. Then what they do is pull your application at random, and that is the order they review the applications. They then go through and toss people who don't qualify (I don't really know what makes you qualify and what doesn't), and move on through the line until they qualify 6 applicants. Our number is #20. The lady on the phone said that #20 isn't too bad. I've also heard that a TONNNN of people can be turned down so #20 isn't looking too bad. Still, ya never know! I really want to get it if it's going to be what's right for us. And I know it will happen if it's meant to be. It's going to definitely be in our prayers until we find out. I hope we find out SOON! :)

The other thing I'm waiting on is my penicillin allergy test. We FINALLY got it done. They ended up sending me to get a blood test instead of a skin test since I guess they don't perform those tests anymore at the allergists office in Chico. So I just went over to Quest to get more blood taken. The results were possibly going to be back today, but maybe not until tomorrow. If we find out I'm allergic to penicillin then they'll probably put me on an additional non-penicillin antibiotic for my possible Lyme. If I'm not allergic, they'll put me on a penicillin since I believe it works the best. I'm anxious to hear back about that so we can get started on more treatment. I REALLY want this to work. Looking toward the future with a house and good health seems realllyyyy nice. But I have no idea what is in store for us. I know that whatever happens is going to be okay whether I choose to believe that at first or not. The easy way would sure be a blessing though. :)

We're watching Lost over starting with Season 1. I love it! We actually just finished Season 1 yesterday so we'll be moving onto Season 2 sometime this week. It's addicting! But there are a lot of things I've forgotten so it's nice to watch it over again. It's making me not able to WAIT for season 6! But it's also a good time-filler (Lost "fix") until season 6 starts next YEAR. I'm mucho looking foward to it. I hope it's not a let down. The show has been SO good that you never know if they can make the ending match the rest of the show. But I think it has potential to be awesome.

I went to Upper Crust today to get a delish chicken ceaser salad that I got last week. They said it was just a "special" and they don't have it any more. :( It was sooo good! Dang it! I got a delicious sandwich instead, but STILL! :)

I need to not eat out every single day for lunch, so I'm thinking of just buying some turkey, wheat bread, and some other sandwich fixings and bringing them to work so that I can have sandwiches most days. And then if i get sick of it i'll let myself go get mexican food or salad or something else. I'm also going to try to stock up on some smart ones since some of them aren't too bad and it's a more controlled way to eat. We'll see what happens. I keep putting off losing weight until I feel better but I really shouldn't do that. I might not get better (and I'm STILL coming to terms with that). So I shouldn't put it off. I should do what I can do while I'm sick (which might not be WAY significant, but it's SOMETHING), and hopefully if I get better I can kick it into high gear. :) I need to concentrate on diet now with some exercise, and then diet AND exercise if/when I get better. I just need to be more diciplined all together.

Ugh, anyway. I best be going now. :) OH! But first, I must say, Carrisa's party was pretty fun even though I did totally BAD at Settlers this time. :( Ryan and Tammy each won. 'Twas a Bryson Bonanza. Anyway, I got to hold Nory a whole bunch and then Nae & Seth came with the boys so I got to hold Joey, too. He's my little guyyyyy! We got to play with James, too. He was in a pretty good mood until he found out they were leaving later in the evening. He's been going through a phase right now where he doesn't want hugs or kisses from me (or anyone I'm told). But I still tricked him into a few kisses. I hate that he's growing up! Dustin and Seth had fun messing with him, and he had fun too. :) "ah-din! ah-din!" (again! again!)

I forgot...

2009-08-05T11:29:00.001-07:00

I forgot to mention that I'm not doing hyperbaric anymore for now. I met with Mitch last Friday after my last session of Hyperbaric. He decided to take me off of it for a while. I guess it's common for people to get better in the following weeks after they quit hyperbaric. (Like a month later or so). We're also TRYING to get me on another antibiotic but we're STILL having trouble getting me set up with the allergist for some reason! (The need to see if I'm allergic to penicillin before they put me on high doses of it). I really wish I could've been on both antibiotics at the same time AND hyperbaric treatment. But whatever. It'll work out. (I HOPE!) So, that's the latest news on my health so far... no more hyperbaric for now, hopefully on 2 antibiotics soon, waiting it out. (So far no changes, but praying for big changes soon).

Chillin' out maxin', relaxin' all cool...

2009-08-04T21:30:00.000-07:00

I'm just hanginging out, fartin' around on the internet while Ryan plays a video game. For once he's not hogging the computer playing his precious new game or checking his Mafia Wars. :)

This week has been pretty slow. Yesterday (Monday) felt like Friday. Ryan had a baseball game & stuff, and it just made it feel like the weekend. Today feels more like a Thursday or somewhere near the end of the week. Sadly, we still have 3 more (long) work days until the weekend. BLEH! Today went by semi-fast, but I think that's because I had a meeting at work and I had to prep for it, too. I had a job ticket training meeting with two new employees. It was a bit different than my normal meetings (I won't go into WHY because you'd fall asleep), so it took a bit longer and was a little stressful. Mostly I just HATE any form of public speaking. Especially to strangers. I had to meet with them over the TV conference since they work at the Mountain View office. The TV froze up and wouldn't re-connect so we had to meet over the phone for the 2nd half of the meeting. The server also went down for a minute which caused two of my programs to close - programs I was using for the training. It sucked! Despite all of that, it still went better than my last meeting. I had major brain fog for some reason and I kept forgetting words and losing my train of thought. It SUCKED!

Anyway, boring work stuff. Blah blah blah. I'm lucky though, to have a fairly easy job, a pretty flexible schedule, a couple of friends at work, and a low-stress job. I like my job. There will always be stuff I'll want to change about my job no matter what it is, but over all I'm pretty happy.

Tonight we had "Brinner" (breakfast for dinner). I made pancakes. We didn't want to go ANYWHERE, including the grocery store. We had some left over lasagna but pancakes sounded good. The rest of the evening was spent doing lots of laundry and watching Big Brother with Ryan. I love my Rynie sooo much. He's the best husband ever. He gets me. We just fit well together. He loves me a lot and does a good job of showing me that he loves me. I love him too, lots and lots.

I've been in a weird mood the last few days. I get quite pessimistic from time to time. Ryan is the opposite - an Optimist. (grossimist. tee hee). I told him that I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. He's not buying it. It's nice though to always have his point of view, that being an "up" side to every "down" side I come up with. Sometimes it's just plain annoying though. :) I've just been worried about everyone. I'm not getting better so far even though I'm being "treated". I'm worried about my mom's health (she's had a few dizzy spells and is just feeling kind of yucky all-together). I'm worried about Jamesie and his doctor appointments this week. Worried about Nae and her enduring this week with James AND the baby. And then on top of the bigger things I worry about smaller things like "is Ryan happy at work?" and "I hope Carla had a good bday even though it didn't work out for all of her friends to be there" or "I hope Carrisa and Norah travel home safely"... things like that. Ryan asked me why everything was so bad and I said "we live on EARTH, therefore, pretty much everything sucks". He said, "EARTH is not in control of us. God is." I guess I should listen to him sometimes. He's kinda smart.

Even though this week has been slow, and I've been kind of in a LAME mood (as far as my pessimistic-ness coming through), there are a few things to look foward to. Well, first off, the week will be half way over tomorrow, right? Also, tomorrow I think we're having dinner with my parents. It's something we've been meaning to do for a while and I think it's finally happening. :) This weekend we're celebrating Carrisa's birthday. I finally get to see her and Nory. I miss them both - they've been gone for about 10 days but they're home now. Also, besides Carrisa's bday celebration there's not much going on this weekend so we'll hopefully have some down time.

I should go now and get ready for beddy.

Week 3

2009-07-29T15:54:00.000-07:00

It's week 3 of hyperbaric therapy. I'm kind of getting used to getting up early again. That doesn't mean I like it though. At least when I go back to my normal schedule it will feel like I'm sleeping in. I have a feeling he will stop the treatments after 4 weeks (20 "dives"). We'll have to wait and see. I'm sick of movies and picking movies, but I'm glad there's something to do in there. We had a new guy today and he started to feel nauseous. Later he said he thinks it's the meds they have him on right now. I'm not sure why he's there (in other words, what's wrong with him). Luckily they have barf bags in there (better than the ones on the planes, too). He did end up throwing up and I felt so bad for him. I was a little bit grossed out, but I mostly just felt terrible that he wasn't feeling well, especially being TRAPPED in there. Because we're literally trapped in there at least until they could get the pressure back down to release the door. I'm not sure how fast they do it in an emergency. Anyway, I'm sure it was pretty awful for him. :(

So far I've been feeling the same. At least as far as I can tell. I don't think I'd notice subtle changes since I have good days and bad. (and even good hours and bad ones). That's why even if it means I get really sick, I want it to be obvious whether it's working or not. I want to be able to tell Mitch that there HAS been a change, whether it's bad or good. Either way it will eventually be good. Sometimes ya get sick before ya get better. I really just want to get better. It would be amazing. If you pray for me, pray for clarity and healing. I'm also very thankful; my bill was a lot lower than I expected it to be which is good news.

Tonight we were supposed to go out to dinner with my parents since Lance is still gone at camp, but my mom isn't feeling very good. :( The flu bug has been going around and that's what she might have. But it's okay because we just went out last night with my grandparents so we prob shouldn't eat out two days in a row anyway! Plus, we will have something to look forward to when she's feeling better. I hope she feels better soon. :-/ It sucks being sick!

Ugh, I better go. I'll post again soon, and hopefully because I'm feeling all better. :)

Lyme? Most likely...

2009-07-24T14:32:00.001-07:00

Yesterday after going in the Spaceship, my mom met me at Mitch's office and we got to talk to him for a little while.

Basically, the western blot test checks for various protiens that could show up in your blood if you have lyme (and some can show up for lyme OR other reasons, so you never know). What is showing up is actually what shows up when your body is FIGHTING OFF the lyme. That's why there are so many false positives. I also read that not only can the lyme bacteria hide in your tissues, organs, and bones instead of just staying in your blood... They can ALSO take your body's collagen (which is found like, everywhere in your body), and coat themselves in it to hide from the antibiotics! Ugh! Little brats! They can also go into a dormant/sleeping state which I believe only one kind of antibiotic is able to kill those ones off. Those little bugs are relentless! In the later stages of lyme (which is what I'd guess I have since I've had symptoms for 10+ years), it's more likely for the bacteria to have found hiding spots by then or become dormant, so sometimes the worse the lyme, the harder it would be for it to show up positive on tests. LAME!

Anywho, my test was borderline because you're supposed to show a certain amount of protiens, but I believe I'm only showing one. The test they did most recently looked specifically at the protien band that shows up on my test to determine whether it's probably lyme causing it or if it could be something else. He told us that the newest test indicates that it probably IS lyme. He also explained that my C-reactive protien is a whopping 28.something (normal is like 0 - 3.5), which isn't necissarily Lyme specific BUT it definitely indicates there is some sort of inflammation/infection in my body - no question. So, based on all of that stuff we're pretty sure I have Lyme. The only thing that he questions is that we did about 2 months of antibiotics about 18 months ago, and I felt no difference - better or worse. To me, 2 months doesn't seem that long because often times people do it for a year or even more. This time I'm on antibiotics AND we're doing the hyperbaric chamber so I reallyyyy hope it works this time!

I'm scheduled to go into the hyperbaric chamber next week. I wasn't sure if he'd schedule me for an additional week, but he did, and we'll see how much longer he schedules me for after next week. I want to go as many times as he'll allow because the more times I go, the more chance I'll have of it killing off the bacteria.

I was talking to Robin about everything today and basically trying to explain all of this stuff. It's kind of hard to explain when you don't understand it fully, and when there's SO MUCH stuff involved with it. But anyway, I was talking about how WEIRD it would be to be all better. Healed. Fixed. I mean, I've had my symptoms since AT LEAST Jr. High age, but maybe it was even earlier? But pretty much it feels like my whole life - or at least MOST of my life. I don't remember what my body even felt like when it was "normal". And I think it was such a slow change that I kind of got used to it, so it has been my "normal" all of these years. But to feel no pain, or little pain... it will be INSANE! I told her, "hey, maybe I'll become a runner or something!" and she said "don't go crazy on us!". She said "uhh, I don't like to run and I don't have pain like yours", but I explained how it would be like if an old person all of a sudden felt like they were in their 20's or teens again! It doesn't matter how other 20 year olds feel... it matters that they felt like crap and now they don't! You know what I mean? But in all of these years I've never had a day, or an hour, or a minute where my body felt pain-free and normal. That's a lot of years to be able to forget what pain-free & normal really feels like. So I think if I get better it will be pretty mind-blowing. Heck, if anything I hope I at least have enough energy to get off of my butt and lose some weight. I'd also like to have more energy to be a better wife, and someday a great mommy. Kids take lots of energy, and I simply don't have energy. :-/

Anyway, that's the latest. We're on like movie #100 now. They generally turn on a movie in the hyperbaric chamber since we're in there for almost 2 hours. This morning we started watching Juno, and I guess we'll finish it up on Monday. Let's see... what else have I seen in JUST the last two weeks?? Taken, Along Came A Spider, Frequency, De JaVu, The Family Man, Meet the Parents, Wild Hogs... Hmm, I think that's it. Let's just say, I probably don't need to see a movie for a LONG time after this. I still have at least another week of movies. I'm really tempted to bring in Lost and force everyone to get addicted to that show. It's the BEST! Plus, we're watching it over starting with season 1 anyway, so it'd be like 2 birds with one stone, right? I wonder if they'd go for it. It's kind of smart to watch a show in there instead of movies. Because people generally go for at least 3 weeks at a time, sometimes longer. So a show makes sense because it's ongoing. Plus, we wouldn't have to choose a new movie every day, which for some reason is the most difficult task ever for everyone. Hmmm.

Well, I've got to go now. I'm SO glad it's Friday! I wish I could see the boys (my nephews - James and Josiah), but I think Nae went to Ashley's this weekend. :( I miss those lil cutie pies!!!!!!!!!

last couple weeks...

2009-07-22T14:30:00.001-07:00

I haven't blogged for like 2 weeks! I've been tired and busy and I haven't found time to make a proper post. :)

I started hyperbaric last week on Monday. So today I had my 8th treatment. It's pretty weird! I'm getting used to it though. It doesn't feel weird, other than ear popping & stuff, but it's just a weird thing all together. I haven't felt any different so far except for being pretty tired. I still haven't figured out if it's the hyperbaric chamber making me more tired, or if it's from waking up 2 hours earlier than I'm used to and having a really busy weekend last weekend. I guess we'll see. I am hoping to have more than 2 weeks of treatment just because I want to give it a fair chance. I need to figure out how expensive it's going to be because I'm still not exactly sure how much I'm being charged.

Here's what the tank looks like (this isn't the same one, but it's similar)

And this is what the ultra-attractive, totally awesome "head tent" we get to wear looks like. They pump oxygen straight into the hood instead of filling the whole tank with oxygen (like they'd do if it was a single person chamber - ours holds 6-ish people). I must say, the hood paired with my awesome over-sized DENIM scrubs sure makes me look like a hottie.

Tomorrow I will stay after hyperbaric to talk with Mitch. His assistant called me yesterday and told me he wanted to talk to me for about 30 mins and that he has some test results back & stuff. The test they did was to look more closely at the protien bar that was showing up in my blood to further research whether I might have lyme or not.

Anyway, let's move on from the spaceship, shall we?

Last weekend I went with my mother-in-law, Tammy, to Fresno to see a Keith Urban concert (opening band was Sugarland). I don't really listen to country music very much, so I didn't know all of the songs but it was still really fun! I borrowed her CD before we left to listen to it and learn a few of the songs. I only got to listen to it through twice. Anyway, we had really close seats in the first place, and then they started allowing some of the floor seat people (us) to go up front and stand in front of the stage. They brought up the girls in front of us and Tammy was like "I want to go up there!" We gave our puppy dog eyes long enough that they brought us up there, too. So we were enjoying being really close and snapping pics and stuff, when I felt/saw two security guys squeezing right past us. Before we knew it, Keith was coming down a ramp off of the stage RIGHT by us! Tammy looked at me with HUGE eyes and her hand held up a little bit and said "I touched him! I touched him!" HAHA! We were kind of shocked that he came down right next to us. Then he played like 3 songs on another mini-stage right behind all of the floor seats. He came back to the stage another way throught the crowd. Later in the evening he came down AGAIN, right past us. That time he came back the same way he left, right past us, so I decided to touch his back just to say I did. :) haha! It was pretty funny. Some drunk girl walked up onto the stage on the same ramp a little while later. The security guys escorted her back to her seat and everyone around her started to high-five her. It was funny watching all of the crazed fans up front. :) We had a good time, but stood forever and went to bed late (not to mention, we traveled a ways) so I must say we were pretty dang tired that weekend!

The day after we got back, we had a birthday party for Ryan at Lynae & Seths house. They decorated it AWESOMELY according to the "Wild West" theme, and bbqed hamburgers for us. Seth made these cool saloon doors which totally made the decor amazing! The party was a murder mystery party with a wild west theme, which meant we had fun with our costumes and accents. :) It was pretty hilarious.

Ry dressed up in his southern oufit:

Saloon doors:

Silly southern boys:

Western Lucy with a 'stache & cowboy hat!

The whole group, minus Ashley who was gracious enough to snap the pic:

We had a great time. Today is Ryan's actual birthday. He turns 27 today. We're going out to dinner with Tammy tonight for his bday. We're going out with my parents next week, partially for his bday, but also in celebration of his recent promotion. I'm so proud of my Rynie and I'm so glad he came into this world 27 years ago so that we could meet 10 years ago and be married and live happily ever after! :) He's my best friend and I love him so much. Happy Birthday Ryan!!!

First few days

2009-07-10T14:25:00.000-07:00

So, I started the first antibiotic and the cholestyramine powder on Tuesday morning. So I've basically only had 2 doses of the powder and about 5 of the antibiotics, so I've barely started. Nothing has changed so far, but I didn't expect anything to change yet. I'm trying to keep in-tune with my body but I start to over-analyze when I do that. Like, yesterday my right shoulder hurt a little bit and I was like "hmmmm!!", but that's actually really normal for me and I probably slept on it funny. And then this morning my wrists felt really good and stuff, but it only lasted about an hour or 2 and that's normal too. So, I'll have to wait and see and continue to pray that God will make it OBVIOUS if there's a change. Which, you know, sucks... since getting really sick will be hard but it will be worth it if I get better. :)

I got a call today from a lady from the Hyperbaric center and she said they have an appointment ready for me on Monday. I think we go in at about 8:15, but I have to be there at 7:45am. That's pretty early for me! :) Let's hope I can get up and moving by 7-ish at the latest. I'm excited about starting so soon but it will probably be a pretty weird experience!

I'll put more updates as the changes come (I'm hoping). Until then I have to wait and see and hope for clarity.

Anyway, tonight I'm hanging out with Carrisa and I think that Ashley and Nae are going to join us, too. So it will be another baby-fest. :) It's fun for me to hang out with all of the little cuties, and hopefully I'm of some help to the mommies - Some fresh energy I guess. I'm looking forward to spending time with them!

It's almost Ryan's BIRTHDAY! I want to plan a little party for him but he doesn't really know what he wants to do yet. He mentioned doing another murder mystery party like we did a couple of years back for my bday, but it takes some planning so we'll have to see. I think the best weekend slot for his party is going to end up being the 24th - 26th which is only in like 2 weeks. I guess we better get our butts into action.

Look at little Nessie with the Mr. Potato Head parts on her! HAHAHAHA! :)

Doc Appointment

2009-07-07T20:28:00.001-07:00

I saw Mitch and the doctor today for like 2 1/2 - 3 hours. Some of that time was waiting time, but still, quite a while! I met with Mitch first and then we waited for the doc and I saw him for a little bit and then I went back to talk with Mitch for a few minutes. I love having Mitch because normally with a doctor you talk to them for like maybe 15 mins if you're lucky... Well, with Mitch he's able to talk with me for at least an hour, go over everything with me, explain everything to me, and come up with a plan. Then we go over to the doctor and Mitch tells him what he was thinking (for a plan of action) and the doc sometimes has additional ideas, then he signs off on everything and sets up the different prescriptions and referrals and whatever is required of the actual doctor to do. It's nice though because then it only takes like 15 mins of the doctors time as usual, but I still feel like everything was thoroughly thought about & stuff. I hate seeing a doctor for only a few mins and it doesn't seem like they fully have an understanding of what's going on with me.

Anyway, when I met with Mitch today we were able to talk about my labs. I think I misunderstood his assistant about my Lyme test (or she misunderstood him or something). But today he explained it to me. It sounds like it's pretty similar to my last test. Basically they test for different proteins in my blood, and I believe I'm supposed to have like 2 out of 3 of the "bars" of proteins but apparently I only have one showing up. He said that some professionals would say that's enough to know that I have Lyme, but others would argue the opposite. The "rule book" definitely thinks it's not enough (but I learned that it's something that hasn't been updated in a while and there's a lot of medical politics behind that which make the "standard" pretty LAME. Lonnggg story). Anyway, so there's a new test where they can take my blood and check that specific bar more closely. When they look at it they should be able to tell whether that bar/protein is showing up in my blood because of lyme or because of another reason. He said if they say it's because of Lyme then he pretty much believes I DO have Lyme... but if it doesn't, then it's still kind of undetermined. Again, you can get a pretty definite "yes" but it's not really ever a definite "no" since the tests are so questionable.

He explained to me why the test can differ each time and why they can show up negative even if they KNOW you have it (tick bite, bullseye rash, symptoms, etc). So, what they look for in the blood proteins that show up in your blood when your body is fighting off the Lyme. So, if for some reason your body isn't fighting when they take the blood, then it might not show up. I wish they were able to look for the actual lymie bugs (spirochetes) but I guess they can hide out pretty well in different parts of your body so they would probably be hard to find.

So, today he faxed an order over to IGeneX again for them to check that specific bar for Lyme which will hopefully come back with something conclusive. He's also going to start me on anti-biotic treatment again to see if I notice any changes. If the meds work I will either feel better or feel worse - most likely worse. It's called "herxing" when your symptoms get worse but it's actually a good thing because that's how you know if it's working or not (it happens when your body is killing of the lymie bugs). I'm starting one antibiotic tomorrow. I guess when I was young I had a reaction to a penicillin, so we've assumed that I'm allergic to it. They're going to refer me to a allergist to check me for a penicillin allergy because penicillin is what they'd normally start me on for Lyme treatment, so if I'm not allergic then they can prescribe me some of that. If I am, they need to decide which other antibiotic to prescribe me. Another thing I will start tomorrow is this stuff called Cholestyramine. It's a powder that you mix into water. It's normally used to help lower cholesterol when taken WITH food by binding with the cholesterol in your bile to keep it from being re-absorbed into your body. In Lyme patients you take it WITHOUT food, in between meals, and it can bind with the toxins in your body and then you pee them right out. Pretty cool, but it takes quite a while. That one is kind of an "extra" thing to try to just see if it helps. He said that some people say that they get better just from that, but it's not always the case. That would be pretty simple though, wouldn't it? :) I will start taking it once a day and work up to 3 times a day. I have to take it 2 hours after a meal and 2 hours before a meal which means I need to have 4 hours total in between meals. I generally snack and stuff throughout the day, and my breakfast and lunch are pretty close together, so I'll have to work on that. I also can't take it close to the time that I take my meds.

One more thing that they're going to do is try me out in the Hyperbaric Chamber. The Hyperbaric chamber is a vault thingie and inside it is about 1.5 - 3 times the normal atmospheric pressure (equivalent to 45 feet below sea level). They also pump pure oxygen into the tank. It basically makes it so that your blood receives oxygen better & faster I think. They use it for athletes with injuries that they want to heal faster & stuff like that. If your blood is receiving more oxygen, your cell walls are too, which means accelerated healing. Basically, the lyme bacteria generally doesn't survive very well at that pressure & oxygen level. We're just trying it out WITH the antibiotics to see if it helps at all. Most patients do several treatments, but I'm only doing about 5 - 7 treatments.

I just found this article that a man wrote who was diagnosed with Lyme and got treatment in the CHICO Hyperbaric chamber. It was pretty interesting for me to read. If you're interested, here it is:

http://www.hbotoday.com/treatment/lymediseasearticle.shtml

So, that's basically what we're doing for now... they're checking more into the lyme blood test (the protien that's showing up in my blood tests), they're starting me on anti-biotics and referring me to get checked for a penicillin allergy to see if they can put me on that, we're trying out the hyperbaric chamber, and we're trying out the cholestyramine which will hopefully bind to toxins in my body and take them straight out in my waste. I will blog more when I know more! Mitch has been REALLY great, waiving as many fees as he can and just being really helpful all around. He's a really, really nice man!

The things I want to keep in prayer, and you can too :-) if you think of me:

CLARITY: I want to be able to tell easily if I feel better or worse since I will have to report that back to my doctors. It's hard for me to tell sometimes because I've been sick for 10+ years. It's hard for me to gauge if my pain is better or worse... it's just THERE. ALWAYS. So hopefully I will herx or feel better enough for me to notice.

STAMINA: If the treatments do work then I will probably get pretty sick for a while. I want to keep working and living a somewhat "normal" life which might be really hard for me if I'm feeling worse than I already feel. I need to pray for stamina for myself and also for my Ryan for having to take care of me during the process. He's so great. :)

PEACE: I get easily overwhelmed. Something new and sorta drastic might really throw me for a loop so I really want to feel and accept God's peace which is the only true peace that my heart can have. I also want to have peace about my decisions and peace about the future if the treatments don't go as I hope they do.

That's basically it. I'm looking forward to this opportunity not only because it might mean that I'm finally ALL BETTER after being sick since I was 13-ish, but also because I think it will force me to have to stay in communication with God which I'm not very good at doing on my own, as well as with Ryan and my doctors. It's something that I have to jump into with both feet which I'm never brave enough to do. Sometimes being out of your comfort zone is the best thing for you. Hopefully being out of my comfort zone WITH extra oxygen will do me some good. :) If nothing else, I think the hyperbaric gives you extra energy.

One last un-related note: We saw "Up" and it was so very cute! I teared up but I didn't cry so I was pretty proud of myself. I guess I had to make up for my stupid reaction to My Sister's Keeper!

Mini Golf & 4th of July

2009-07-04T22:53:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Ryan and I went miniature golfing at the ol' Chico Funland. Hahaha! I slept in way too long, and then we decided we were quite hungry so that's the first thing we did - get food. We went to Quiznos (and although I wanted to have a picnic, Ryan doesn't like picnics so we didn't go) :( After lunch we got some ice cream from Ben & Jerry's and headed across town to play miniature golf. A bunch of kids were only one hole in front of us, so we decided to play the 2nd half first and the 1st half second. Turns out we TIED the first half and then Ryan beat me by like 8 points. :( The last 3 holes took me 5 strokes and only took him 1 or 2. :( But I was doing better the 1st (er, technically 2nd) half than I thought I would so I'm still proud of myself. I guess I just got tired. Haha. They also have a batting cage at Funland so Ryan wanted to bat. He got 4 coins which give you 15 pitches per coin. I've kind of always wanted to try it but I haven't hit a ball since they made is in like Jr. High PE class or something. Ryan did the first 15 balls so I asked him if I could use the next coin. I did much better than I thought! I think I hit every ball except for 2 or 3! My arm is sore though, sadly... from only 15 swings. We had tons of fun and got really sweaty!

Today we went over to my grandmas house to celebrate the 4th of July. We went swimming and sat around the pool from 1:00 til about 6-ish, maybe. Then we ordered a pizza, hung out, and went home. I got to hold Josiah for a little while. I also got to swim around with Jamesie for a while and play "superman" with him. He's so cute and says tons of cute little phrases. I love him! Last time Ryan swam over at Grandma's (while we were in Roseville), he and Seth made up a game, so this time me, Ry, and Nae played it. It was fun but made me TIRED! I also got a super bad sunburn (and so did Ryan, and Nae's shoulders looked pink, too). Anyway, the game basically goes like this: One of us stands on the diving board with one ball and 4 pool rings. about 12 feet away the other two players stand on either side of a bucket (or in this case, James' floaty tube). You get one free shot to throw the ball into the center of the floaty. Then you try to toss each of the 4 rings into the center of the floaty, but when you throw the rings, the other two players try to either block them from going in with those water noodles or catch the ring ON the noodle. You get a point anytime you make a ball or ring into the bucket/floaty or when you catch a ring on your noodle. Ryan WON, of course, with 11 points, Nae got 2nd with 6 points, and I got last place with a whopping TWO points. hehe. Which, I didn't get until my last turn. I have no idea how many rounds we did because we played FOREVER. But I ended with 2 points, a sunburn, a stiff neck, and hopefully lots of calories burned! I can't say I didn't have fun though! :)

Ryan is treating me to a fancy dance right now. I think I'll go and give him a kiss and see if he'll do anymore funny dances for me.

'Night night.

Swimsuits / Movies

2009-07-03T00:28:00.001-07:00

I tried on that one swimsuit from target. It was kind of cute but not the best. Plus, they're out of stock in my size.

Now I want one of THESE!

The first two are really similar. They're vintage inspired and verryyy cute! They have a skirty looking thing in the front, but they're just regular int he back. I think the black one is slightly the "boy shorts" type of back. SO CUTE! The 3rd one is called the MIRACLE SUIT. I doubt any miracle would work on my current state of body, but that one just might have ot do. See the side detail? And that bottom panel looks pretty slimming! I just wish it came in more exciting colors/patterns. I did see a polka-dot version of it but it's more expensive, and they're small polka dots. The 4th one is one I found on ebay (New WITH TAGS, cuz anything else would be GROSS). It's actually navy blue and has cute little polka dots on it and rouching all down the middle which is supposed to be figure flattering.

I was looking back on the movies I wanted to see in one of my May posts and I thought I'd give an update!

Up: Didn't see it yet. :( But! We might see it tomorrow. Ryan has some free movies passes and now that it's been in the theater a while we can use the passes. I still want to see it really bad! I heard it's sad. I bet it's really cute. James saw it without me.

Away We Go: Our stupid theater never showed it! Bummed. I read reviews later and they basically said that the movie was trying too hard to be an indie-type of film. But whatever, I still want to see it. It looks cute and the actors are funny. I might just have to netflix it later if it never comes to our theater. Pooooop. (PLUS Jim Gaffigan is in it!!!)

Moon: This is another one that I never know what happened to it...? It didn't come to our theater but I never heard anything about it either! I'll have to see if it came out and I might end up having to wait to netflix it, too. :(

The Proposal: K, I guess I've barely seen any of the movies I wanted to see. I haven't seen this one yet. If any girls want to go with me, let me know, cuz Ryan won't see it. It looks funny!

Year One: Saw it. It was pretty funny! Although, it was what you expect from the previews (in other words, the previews show a lot of it). I liked it though because I like the actors. Michael Cera is TOO CUTE and pretty dang funny. :)

My Sister's Keeper: Saw it. CRIED MY EYES OUT! Warning: I've heard that the book has a different ending. Today I read how the book ends online and how it compares with the movie. It's not just different, it's WAY different. So be warned if you've read the book but haven't seen the movie yet! I think I'd be confused/pissed if I read the book first!!! Good movie though. Total tear jerker!!!

Where The Wild Things Are: This one isn't out yet. I think it might come out at the end of this year (Oct maybe?). This one will be fun to see with Ryan. :)

Those were all of the ones I listed in my previous post. I also saw The Hangover with Ryan. It was funny and Bradley Cooper is my boyfriend, so I enjoyed it. But it's also full of yucky stuff that I could've done without. Still, I couldn't help but laugh through a lot of the movie.

Here are some more I think I want to see:

Funny People:

I can't really explain what it's about.

Sunshine Cleaning:
What ever happened to this movie? It's like it came and went! ugh!

Synopsis: A single mom and her slacker sister find an unexpected way to turn their lives around in the off-beat dramatic comedy 'Sunshine Cleaning.' This uplifting film about an average family that finds the path to its dreams in an unlikely setting. This one stars Amy Adams and Emily Blunt.

The Time Traveler's Wife:

This one could be cute, I dunno. The previews look good but it seems kind of weird!

Synopsis: A Chicago librarian suffers from a rare genetic disorder that sends him hurtling through time whenever he is under extreme duress; despite the fact that he vanishes at inordinately frequent and lengthy intervals, he attempts to build a stable future with the beautiful young heiress he loves. Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams star. I love Rachel!

The Taking of Pelham 123:

This one might be good. We'll have to see. I haven't heard much about it. I just know that I LOVE DENZEL WASHINGTON.

Synopsis: A New York City subway dispatcher draws on his extensive knowledge of the subway system in order to outsmart a dangerous criminal mastermind who's hijacked a subway train. It's a remake of a 70's movie which was a remake of a book. It stars Denzel and John Travolta.

And then, of course, a few I shall NEVER see: BRUNO (HELLNO.) and I Love You, Beth Cooper. No.

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A few peeps have asked me about the swimsuits so I'm adding the links! :)

http://www.unique-vintage.com/preorder-esther-williams-vintage-swimsuit-style-polka-bathing-suit-p-2197.html

http://www.modcloth.com/store//ModCloth/Made+in+the+USA/Beach+Blanket+Bingo+Retro+Suit

http://www.amazon.com/Miraclesuit-Womens-Oceanus-Swimsuit-Black/dp/B001UQ6RGO/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=apparel&qid=1246904654&sr=1-8

The last one was an ebay one.

I also REALLY want this one! It's sooo cute! (quite pricey!)

http://www.unique-vintage.com/retro-vintage-swimsuit-style-navy-bathing-suit-p-3584.html