2012 in review.

2012 was kind of crazy, and I don't really want to go relive all of 2012 to make a "Year in Review" post like I've done in the past. Instead I'll do a bullet list, sort of things we've learned/experienced, in no particular order:

• the national spelling bee is the coolest show you will ever see on tv.
• we bought bowling shoes at the beginning of this year and went bowling several times. we were improving when we went often, but then once chris got sick we kind of stopped. we've gone a few times since, but not often enough to improve my mad skills.
• activity days is amazing, and working with the 8-11 year old girls is so much fun! you just have to make sure to remember that they aren't grown ups and don't have the attention span and same skills that adults do, so it's important to simplify crafts and games.
• jury duty is quite the experience. i got summoned, but didn't get put on a jury. chris got summoned a few months later (right after he got better) and he DID get put on a jury. 
• it's scary when you are sick for 1 month without knowing what you even have
• some home teachers make really good curry
• girls absolutely can learn to mow the lawn, and sometimes they do a really good job, and even enjoy it a little bit
• medical insurance is really important, and a HUGE blessing (we'd be in a LOT of debt if it weren't for good insurance)
• it's scary when you get a call from your dr saying "your blood work came back, we want you to go get an MRI of your brain" and then the MRI place calls you about 5 minutes later and says "we got a referral from your doctor. we can squeeze you in in an hour and a half" you really get afraid when someone is willing to see you so quickly.
• it isn't fun to have conversations like "if I die, you should try to go back and finish school on campus at BYU" or "if I am permanently ill, we should probably move to Utah so you can finish school and work. I could be the stay at home dad" --these are so not conversations you want to be having when you haven't even been married for 2 years
• it's important to be pushy with Dr's offices. Get to know the office manager, they are way more helpful than the receptionist/scheduler at a lot of places, especially at the ENT's office. You can get what you want and need a lot faster that way
• it's great to have a scanner at home so you don't have to go anywhere to scan and then send documents to insurance companies, disability leave providers, and doctors offices
• it's really important for a wife to have a girls night to look forward to when she's been dealing with her husband being ill for so long. even if that girls night is doing something dumb like watching the bachelorette. the important thing was the company.
• you can only watch so much tv/movies at a time
• audiobooks are awesome, but you get sick of sitting there
• it's tricky to plan meals and cook when you get a huge list of foods to avoid
• it's really awesome to have a brother-in-law who is a PA, so you can call him and get an opinion on whether or not it's worth it to go to the ER at 10pm
• CVS and Walgreen's have a great selection of canes (if you ever need one)
• going to your pcp every other week is a great way to develop AWESOME relationships with every single person who works there. it also helps when you drop by a few times in between appointments to pick up/drop off paperwork. 
• we picked freaking awesome pcps when we moved here. honestly, i only picked them because we could walk to their office from our first apartment, and there was a male and female doctor in the office. i have referred SEVERAL friends to them since then. i love them both. and every single person there. i know them all! cynthia, ashanti, genielle, katie, valerie and the two doctors. they all ROCK. especially cynthia, because she put certain candies out the days she knew we had an appointment.
• it was smart of me to not take a pregnancy test earlier in the day the day that I found out I am pregnant. that morning i went to playgroup and someone who had recently moved out of the ward said "did i hear that you're pregnant?" and i could honestly say "woah! nope!" i was highly suspicious, and confirmed that suspicion about 20 minutes after i got home, but i didn't have to lie to her.
• morning sickness is a bad name. it should be called "whatever time of day it feels like it" sickness. 
• throwing up gets really old when you do it a couple times a day for a few weeks.
• it wasn't really all that bad when my throwing up happened on a set schedule-11:00am came and I KNEW it was time to run into the bathroom or I was going to have a mess on my hands. once it became more random it was a lot harder to plan my day. i just didn't leave the house for a few weeks in fear of being somewhere and needing a toilet.
• there are a lot of crazy pregnant ladies online that are willing to share every detail of their pregnancy and all their words of "wisdom". they also will cause you to panic if you let them. when in doubt, call the nurse don't google.
• pregnancy dreams are CRAZY. lets just hope mine don't come true, or this baby is going to be a crocodile. and it will be a hermaphrodite. also, i better avoid zoos or else monkeys are going to jump on me and rub their poopy bums all over my face. YIKES. 
• it is not smart to watch extreme makeover: home edition while pregnant. that show had me in tears for hours at a time.
• Our Best Bites and America's Test Kitchen are the best sources (besides that home teachers curry) for recipes. 
• it's ok if the world ends on December 21st because BYU football season ends on December 20th when they play in their bowl game.
• you can buy bosco sticks at sam's club. but be warned, you will want to eat the whole box really quickly. 
• it's hard to find a good office chair for a husband with back problems. he needs something really specific. the one time we thought we found a good one, it was delivered broken. can't really sit on a chair that is missing one of its five wheels. 
• getting an ultrasound of your throat (thyroid) feels really funny. but don't laugh, because it doesn't help the tech get good pictures.
• just dance is a perfectly acceptable form of exercise, especially once the temperature drops and it's only 50 degrees in the mornings. 
• it sucks when your favorite pajamas (my moose pajama pants that my mom made for me in 2005 for our family reunion at yellowstone) start wearing out because you literally live in them about 16 hours a day. but you still wear them because they are the most comfortable pants ever. and they have moosen and bears on them.
• jr bacon cheeseburgers from wendy's are the most delicious thing you can order through a drive-thru. but they don't cost 99 cents like they used to. they're like $1.49 or $1.69 now which is crazy because the patties are smaller than they used to be. the bacon is a little better though... 
• sonic's tater tots are a close second. while you are there you might as well pick up a cranberry limeade. you know you want one. 
• it's hard to shop for your husband for christmas when you share a credit card and follow the same deal sites. i was excited to surprise him with some cheap xbox live subscription cards, but a few minutes after i ordered them he said "woah! did you see this awesome deal on slickdeals for xbox live cards?" and then the next day he saw that a charge showed up on our credit card... what else would i have bought from dell? yeah. so much for a surprise. also, he may be a tiny bit surprised when he sees what box of chocolates he has from See's... because I didn't get the one I would like better (the assortment of peppermint patties) I got him a box of just dark chocolate ones. 
• it takes me approximately 2 minutes to completely empty my pantry when we notice there are ants in it. it then takes about 7 to completely reorganize and put things back after the ants are dead, wiped out, and any visible holes/cracks are filled in. how do i know this? i've had to do it at least 3 times this year, most recently on the night before thanksgiving.
• byu needs to thank their defense for their win against sdsu at the poinsettia bowl. they really need to thank kyle van noy. because he was amazing.
• water is delicious. but sometimes you need to add a little fresh lemon or lime to it, otherwise it gets kind of boring.
• at the beginning of the year i set a goal to read the complete standard works this year. based on everything that happened since may i got waaay behind. instead i am okay with only having read The Old Testament, New Testament, and Pearl of Great Price. 

I could've thought of a lot more, but I think this post is already plenty long. If you read this whole thing, you get extra points. :)

My favorite

This is probably my favorite Mormon Message right now. I just think it has a great message. I've watched it probably about 10 times in the last two weeks. What a sweet reminder of the true Christmas Spirit.

Also, I know you're waiting for a pic of my hair. We're finally coloring it tonight, and then you'll get a pic :)

hair

Today I got the most expensive haircut that I've paid for. I know that the salon I went to sometimes growing up cost more, but it didn't come out of my money, so I don't count my Annette haircuts. How much did I pay? Including tip it was just $23. Since we moved here I've been taking advantage of the coupons on the back of my grocery receipts... a new Great Clips opened up right by the grocery store and at first they were $4.99 haircuts. Then it was $6.99. Last time I used one they were up to $9.99. But I was ready for something different. My hair needed some change. Pretty hardcore change.

A friend in my ward is a stylist. Until she got pregnant last year she was working at a salon, and after she started not feeling so great she decided to just do cuts out of her home. Chris has gotten his hair cut by her a few times and we've LOVED what she has done for his hair. She took the time to actually look through his hair and not mess up the spot that sticks up a little funny in the back.

I decided it was time to get her to cut my hair. I had to wait for her to start working again, since she stopped for about 2 months after giving birth. I was her last haircut before she goes out of town tomorrow for Christmas. And holy crap, I LOVE what she did. When I got ther she asked what I had in mind, I explained the general idea of what I wanted but then asked her for some advice. I knew I wanted about chin length hair, that's all I knew. Was it better to make it all one length? Or to have the back a little shorter? Or just what? And at that length are layers even a smart option? She took the time to look through my hair to see my growth patterns and to figure out where I already have layers and such. She explained to me what she thought was best, and it explained it well enough that I could make my own decision! So... My hair is chin length, with the back a little shorter, and a few soft layers. She even took the time to dry it with a blow dryer and round brush so it's styled and looks like it got straightened. PLUS we actually had all sorts of things we could talk about while she cut it, no small talk like you get at the hairdresser.

It's my favorite haircut I think I've ever gotten. The one time I've walked out of a haircut and immediately liked it.

After she cut it we talked color. Growing up I colored my hair occasionally (always at sleepovers with my friends) and I only stopped because I was broke in college and that $10 needed to go towards groceries instead of my hair. Since  she had her baby she hasn't started doing coloring yet, but said that after they get back in town she'll see how her little guy is doing and see if she is ready to start doing color yet. She said she could order me some professional dye, but I wouldn't get it til she got back, so beginning of January. I decided to just go to Walmart and pick a box myself. I used to be pretty good at picking color, and after reading some of the boxes I figured out what type I wanted. I was even able to find the color that eventually fades over time, since I wasn't sure I was really ready to commit to the maintenance of coloring your hair with permanent dye. Chris is excited about this (I wouldn't have done it if he wasn't into the idea) but we'll see what he thinks when my hair is a different color. I think depending on how this goes I'll at least have her order me color next time... although it would be cool to get my hair pro-colored sometime too.

Chris is going to help me color my hair sometime this week, then I'll post a picture. It will be a lot better to get a picture when someone else can take the picture. I'm excited.

Endo

I saw my Endocrinologist today who looked at all my lab work (all 3 tests) and my thyroid ultrasound and basically said that yes, my number was a little bit low, but so close to normal that she wouldn't medicate me yet at least because my number is so normal. I guess my TSH number is .2 and normal is .3 and she doesn't normally medicate unless you're at or below .01 and she said I was far far away from that. She didn't seem too worried, but is sending me for lab work in 3 weeks and I have an appointment in about a month!

What it sounds like is that my HCG hormone is just interfering with my thyroid hormone a little and messing things up, but that is common in pregnancy. She also said that since I have been dealing with morning sickness my HCG level is probably higher than average which would definitely mess with my TSH more than the average person.

So pretty much I've been anxious and worrying about this for what appears to be no big reason at all! I'm super excited about that!

Thoughts.

I was kind of waiting til after my doctor appointments this week to blog, but it's not like I can't blog before then! Today I see my OB and tomorrow I see my Endocrinologist. I'm really anxious for that appointment because it's a new doctor (for me) and hopefully they'll have answers to my questions and that the meds they likely will put me on will help me to feel better.

My morning sickness came back, although it's not an every day thing anymore. Honestly, that kind of makes it more annoying though. I used to be able to predict exactly how my morning would pan out, but now I never know if it's going to be a "good" day or a "not so good" day. I just learned to not plan anything before noon, but that if it ends up being a good morning I can go do errands before then.

We put our AWESOME 2-foot tall, pre-lit, pre-decorated Christmas tree up a few days ago! This is the tree that Chris's parents sent him while he was on his mission, then sent to us for our first Christmas when our apartment had no room for a tree. We still don't have much room for a bigger tree, unless I moved my piano into the second bedroom, but I don't want to move my piano, because then I won't see it as often and I won't play it. So we just make do with our 2 foot tall tree. It's fabulous! Once the tree went up it lonely, so I went ahead and wrapped a few gifts for Chris. His eyes lit up when he got home from work and saw them, started shaking them and now shakes them often to see if he can guess what is in the packages. I'm smart though and have put everything into boxes no matter what the shape is so that it makes it harder... and then I fill the boxes either with extra fabric scraps (from Activity Days) or the bubble wrap stuff that Amazon uses to fill boxes. He shakes them and doesn't hear a thing! He even has a gift from the baby!

Oh! That reminds me! As we were doing some Black Friday shopping (on Amazon) Chris found a collection of some Berenstein Bear books that was like $5 for 6 books. I ordered it. It's the one thing the baby is getting from us for Christmas from us! I've been trying not to go crazy buying books because there currently is a Book Shower in the talks and I don'tk want lots of duplicates... but Costco has some awesome stuff... an 8 pack of Sandra Boynton books, an 8 pack of The Complete Barnyard Collection (Click Clack Moo, Cows that Type + the follow up books to that), and a 6 pack of Fun with Mouse and Friends (if you give a mouse a cookie, a moose a muffin, a pig a party, etc). It was a good thing that Chris and I went to Costco together, and that HE had the Costco card so that I couldn't buy any of them. Oh, they also had 3 different 4 packs of Dr. Seuss books. Books were the first thing I started thinking about when I saw that pregnancy test. I got on Amazon and started a wish list just of books. That's been fun since we don't know the gender. Also, I want the hugest collection of books ever for my kids! Gosh I love books. Especially kid books.

And that's what's going on here. Oh, that and research, research, research. There are a lot of big things to buy and we want to make sure we're getting good stuff-crib, car seat, stroller, etc. Thanks, Mom & Dad for the subscription to Consumer Reports, that makes the research a lot easier :)

a goal...

I had a goal to reorganize my pantry by Jan 1.

 Little did I know I'd get the chance to do it tonight.

I went to the pantry to grab my new bag of brown sugar and found about 10-15 ants crawling around on the inside and outside of the bag, with little holes in the bag. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. I hate ants. I think I'm ready to pack up the rest of our house and go buy a house. Tonight. Preferably a house that isn't like 50 years old with cracks and crevices everywhere in the kitchen.

I have gotten SUPER good at pulling everything out of my pantry though and piling them on the counter while simultaneously checking them for ants. Like WAY good at that. That's one of the awesome skills I've acquired since living here.

Well there goes me making an apple pie tonight. Guess that will just get to happen tomorrow, as I instead fill in gaps and cracks with some caulking. At least I got the satisfaction of watching Chris poison the heck out of the ants.

Scared

It's is going to be a little pathetic. I'll admit that right now.

Last week we were at the mall and I noticed that the new See's Candies store was open so I begged Chris to go in with me. I told him about how we always had a box of See's under our Christmas tree and how delicious the chocolates are. I mentioned that it would be awesome to get a box for us this year. I told him that the nuts and chews box is especially delicious, but that you can also do a custom mix that would be fun too! I started pointing out some of the tastiest chocolates.

Last night Chris asked me to go online to See's website and make a list of my favorites. Here comes the devestation. My favorite has always been the milk chocolate caramel pattie. Online they don't have it. They have the dark chocolate caramel pattie but not the milk chocolate one. Did they seriously stop making it? Or did someone just screw up and not put it online? I would seriously eat an  entire pound of that one chocolate.

I'm scared that the tastiest chocolate disappeared.

Doctors (ranting and raving)

This may or may not interest you. I need to get it off my chest and this is a great place to do so.

I'm pretty happy with my doctors. I LOVE my primary care doctor, she is FABULOUS. Her husband, who is Chris's primary care doctor is excellent as well. We love their office, all of their staff, and I especially love the little candy bowl that they have where you check out. It's super easy to get any question answered from them. It takes like 10 seconds to get someone to answer the phone, and most of the time it's exactly the right person I want to talk to (Katie & Valerie are amazing!) but if I need someone else (say, the nurse) I only have to wait like 5 seconds for them to transfer me.

They're really prompt at giving you the results from your lab work. The lady at the front desk knows us by name and as long as she isn't already helping someone else when I walk in the door, she'll just look up and say "Oh, Miss Marci, I've got you checked in". She's the best. I love her. And when I accidentally leave my wallet at home when I go in it isn't a big deal because she's got my back. Well, more like she has a photocopy of my card so she can still run everything just fine.

Then there is my OB. Also AMAZING. Everyone I've dealt with there has been fantastic. I feel like I never have much time sitting in the waiting room. The nurse is funny, she does her job, and then the Dr comes in and does her job. I love everything about that office except that I have to pay for parking. It doesn't cost much, especially for just a normal appointment, but still... I have to pay to park which I think is lame!

Then.... comes my complaint. Last week I got a call from the OB saying that lab results for my thyroid test came back abnormal and they told me to go to my PCP to get that issue addressed. I was able to get an appointment with my pcp for the next day. She sent me for more intense blood work, an ultrasound of my thyroid, and referred me to an Endocrinologist. The blood work results came back today and my thyroid level is still pretty low, meaning I have an overactive thyroid. I was able to get the ultrasound scheduled for this afternoon, no problem. But then... that darn Endocrinologist. I called them right after my Dr's appt on Friday to schedule. They had turned the phones off for an early lunch. I called again after their lunch was supposed to be over. They weren't back from lunch yet. I called again and finally got someone, but was then directed to the "new patient scheduling department" only to reach her voice mail telling me that she was away from her desk but to leave a message and she'd call me back. I left a message, but then still kept trying to call her every 25-30 minutes. I finally got a call back from her, but at the time she was calling I was on the phone scheduling that ultrasound so I couldn't answer the call. About 2 minutes later I tried calling her back but the phone system was turned off for the day. I have called 4 times so far today and still haven't been able to get in touch with who I needed.

Apparently this office has two of the absolute best Endocrinologists who specialize in thyroid disorders in San Antonio, but so far it's proven impossible to even get a hold of the one person who can schedule me an appointment. My pcp told me that when I schedule if I mention that I'm 14 weeks pregnant and was just diagnosed with a thyroid disorder that they should get me in super quick, and it seems like it's important for me to get in soon... but when do I give up on this office and try some random Endo? I have a list of 44 other Endo's I could call, some of which have offices much closer to my house... but these two doctors I was referred to are really good, and known for their specialty in thyroid issues.

And there you have it. That's what has been on my mind all morning.

Grr

I hate it when someone decides that 8 am on a Saturday is the perfect time to do all their loud yard work. You know, the weed whacking, the tree trimming with chainsaws, and lawn mowing. Especially when it's my next door neighbor. And especially when it's right outside my window.

The person who owns the duplex next to ours hired people to come trim trees and crap and asked them to come in the afternoon. Apparently afternoon means 8 am to the company they hired. Chriscwent out to talk to them to see if they could stop their yelling and told them how frustrated we were because of them. It was the one day we had the chance to sleep in, and although I'm not throwing up daily anymore I still have been feeling sick in the mornings.

And here I am awake at 8:38 on Saturday blogging for you.

Funny Medical Terminology

I've been dying to share this for about four weeks, but kept it to myself til now.

At the lab where my OB sends me for my bloodwork they have a lot of funny things on the wall that you look at while they draw your blood. The first time I went there I was laughing pretty hard, so when I went back on Monday I asked the lady if I could take a picture of one of the signs, and instead she just made me a photocopy. Some of these definitions are funnier than others, but I still thought I'd share them all. I have no idea what their source was, otherwise I'd give them credit.

"Medical Terminology: What Dr's are Really Talking About":

Cesarean Section: A neighborhood in Rome
Catscan: Searching for kitty
Cauterize: Made eye contact with her
Coma: A punctuation mark
D&C: Where Washington is
Dilate: To live long
Enema: Not a friend
Fester: Quicker than someone else
Fibula: A small lie
Labor Pain: Getting hurt at work
Morbid: A higher offer than I bid
Nitrates: Cheaper than day rates
Outpatient: A person who has fainted
Rectum: Darn near killed him
Secretion: Hiding something
Seizure: Roman Emperor
Terminal Illness: Getting sick at the airport
Tumor: More than one
Urine: Opposite of you're out
Varicose: Nearby, close by
Vein: Conceited

Also, I want the record to show that I am on a 4-day no puking streak; AND the last two mornings when I woke up I didn't feel nauseous. *knock on wood*

Guess it's time...

Recently I've been writing some poems. Well, I guess I wrote one poem, thought it was pretty good, and decided to leave it at that.

Roses are red
Violets are blue
On May 16th
Our baby is due!

I think it's a pretty sweet poem, although I do have to admit that I didn't write it... I found it on some baby website and filled in the blank with my due date.

This is the true reason why I haven't blogged a whole lot in the past 3 months. I've spent more time than I would like to admit with my head in the toilet, and that just doesn't leave much time/energy or good stories for the blog! I will admit that I've watched the first 4 seasons of Boy Meets World, watched a marathon of Storage Wars, and a few episodes of A Baby Story (before I realized I definitely could not watch many more of those).

I haven't made any recipes that were particularly notable, so I haven't shared those. In fact, I haven't made a whole lot of anything. We've been eating tacos once a week, and I learned that I prefer ground beef tacos rather than chicken tacos. Yuck. I also fell in love with Burger King burgers all over again. And I've been dying to get some Chinese food lately, but that hasn't happened yet. Going to Red Robin for my birthday last week was the best food decision I've made lately.

Anyway, back to the fun stuff! We found out on September 10th, and have been so dang excited ever since! It's been hard to keep it quiet, so after my second appointment yesterday when we got to hear the heartbeat and everything sounded/looked good we decided it was time to make the big announcement! At the end of my appointment I went to schedule my next appointment, and the lady also went ahead and scheduled the appointment after that, which will be the BIG ultrasound! We find out the gender on New Year's Eve, so we'll probably end up throwing a nice little shindig that evening (if any of our friends are in town) or on New Year's Day to reveal the gender and to celebrate the new year!

I shared the news on Facebook last night by saying "Thank you everyone for the birthday wishes. I had a great day! The best part was hearing our babies heartbeat for the first time today! We're excited to welcome "Baby (insert my last name here)" around May 16th!" but then I realized that I don't know that everyone that follows my blog is on FB, or that we're friends... so this post is for you (and also because I've been dying to post about it on here). I may go ahead and write a few other posts to describe the last few months better, so that I remember what it's been like!

Early Birthday!

About a week and a half ago Chris got really worried because he realized we didn't have any birthday wrapping paper. I told him that two days later I was going to the grocery store and I'd pick some up, but that wasn't good enough for him. We finished eating dinner and then headed to Walmart to pick up some wrapping paper, and hopefully some pumpkin ice cream (which they didn't have) and some bananas. We found some wrapping paper. Then in the car on the way home he asked if I had any birthday cards. I like to make my own cards to send for birthdays/weddings/babies/valentines day and he was hoping I'd have some premade ones. I told him I didn't but that we could go through my stuff and I'd help him make one... but then I remembered that we had made a card for his dads birthday but then Chris got really sick and we never wrote in the card or sent it, so that became my birthday card.

Once we got home Chris told me I couldn't come into our room, and told me he wouldn't be out for at least 20 minutes. I used that time to watch an episode of Boy Meets World (thank you, library for having all of the seasons!) until he told me that I had to go sit in the guest bathroom for a few minutes. After a little while (that felt like a LONG while) he came out and handed me my birthday card (remember, this is 2 weeks before my birthday)

In the card he mentioned that he didn't want to wait 2 weeks to give me my gift, and that I was about to go on my first Clark Scavenger Hunt. He told me that as a kid it was tradition that they had to go on a scavenger hunt to find their gifts, it made it a lot of fun. I was super excited to go on my own scavenger hunt! You get to go on it with me, as I'm going to give you the clues.

Clue # 1: To find me you have to look where there are lots of dresses.

I thought this was a super obvious clue, the only place in our house with ANY dresses is my closet. I searched my closet high and low for the heart shaped sticky note (that's what the clues were written on) and couldn't find it. I went through every piece of clothing in that closet to see if he had hidden it somewhere. It wasn't there. I started getting discouraged so I went out and sat on the rug in our living room where I can look around and see basically everything in our house. After a few minutes of this I had a thought that turned out to be brilliant. One of my favorite movies is 27 Dresses, and I just happen to own it. Sure enough, the clue was on the front cover of the movie. Finally!

Clue #2: If you know who I am you know that I have lots of sockets!

After a quick google search to make sure I knew what a socket was (I know, pathetic) I figured this one out quickly. We have a socket wrench set and I KNEW it had to be in there. The trick was figuring out where in the house the socket wrench set was. It could have been in any of 3 closets, but I was smart and picked the right closet the first time! Inside the kit was my next clue!

Clue #3: To find me you gotta love crispy things!

I instantly knew this one. I started laughing and quoting Brian Regan. If you don't know what I'm talking about, please watch the following video. I promise you it is clean and funny and if you don't laugh there is something wrong with you. Ok, I don't promise there is something wrong with you, but you should probably get checked by a doctor if you don't find this amusing.

Sure enough, in my crisper in my fridge was a bag of potato chips with the next clue on it!

Clue #4: I give you support while you play on me.

Once again I sat on the rug in the living room. I was looking around, what do we play on. I checked the table where we play games. Then I thought "oh, maybe the chairs that we sit on while we play?" But then I figured it out. I sit on a piano bench when I play the piano, and sure enough it was on the bottom of the piano bench.

Clue #5: Be careful when touching me or I might fall.

Seriously? I was like, "what! anything could fall when we touch it!" I was looking at things that were up high, I was looking at things that were fragile... when back to the rug I went. That's when I noticed that something was put away a little wrong. Jenga. Of course! When you touch a Jenga tower you have to be careful or else it will fall! Inside the box was my final clue.

Clue #6: I rest here preparing to be rested on.

This one probably took me the longest. Seriously. After a while Chris was asking me questions-what do we rest on? I told him... our bed, the couches, chairs, I thought of our extra blankets all sorts of stuff and he was pleased with the thought process I had gone through. I had checked our bed... the pillows, the pillow cases, the different layers of the sheets/comforter. Nothing. I looked under the bed, along the side of the bed. I checked all over the couches. After reading the clue AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN I thought I had it figured out. We rest on sheets, right? So maybe it's with the extra sets of sheets we have? We have a drawer under each our washer and dryer, and we have extra sheets and towels in each of those drawers. I opened the first one and was bummed that it wasn't there. Chris said "oh, that's a really good guess though!" so I was disappointed. But then... there it was, inside the second drawer. A box wrapped in our cool new wrapping paper!

I unwrapped it and saw the box. I know not to always trust the boxes, it could just be a box that was laying around that the gift would fit in. But when I saw this box I KNEW it was what was really inside it. We didn't have an empty box like this laying around.

I don't know if you can read it, but the box says kindle paperwhite! I got really excited at this point. We'd been looking at Kindles for a little bit because I thought it might be cool. The Paperwhite is a new model that just came out, Chris had preordered it and had to actually wait for it for a few weeks. It ended up coming a week before he was expecting it, which was why he decided he just HAD to give it to me early. Plus, he knew that with Amazon purchases you have 30 days to return stuff, so he wanted to give me enough time to use it and make sure I liked it before the return period ran out. He also knew that a few days after my birthday I would be going out of town, so he wanted to make sure I had it set up and had time to get some books on it, plus buy any accessories I may need. Today my case is coming, really any minute now. I had hoped when I started writing this post that the UPS man would show up before I finished so I could take a picture of the Kindle in the new case, but George hasn't shown up yet (what, are you not on a first name basis with your UPS man?) so you'll have to deal with this picture instead:

You may remember me blogging a while ago about a book called The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. I loved it, thought it was fantastic, and think everyone should read it. She just put out a second (really it's not her second book, but the second on this topic) book called Happier at Home, and that was the first book I actually bought for my Kindle. Something I love is that there are SO many free books in the Kindle store. There are so many old classics that I haven't ever read that I can get for free, so now I decided it's finally time. I've got The Secret Garden, Jane Eyre, Little Women, Les Mis, and a couple others so far. Some of them may end up taking me a while to read, so I like that I can read it on my time, and not have to worry about needing to renew/return things to the library.

Now that I've had it for a week, I can say that I LOVE it! Chris has a Kindle Fire from his work that he has been using for a side project he's been working on, so I got to test it out once but I felt like the lights on it strained my eyes. I was so happy to find that I can read for a while on this Kindle without hurting my eyes. I love it. I can't wait to take it on the airplane with me next week and know that I have several books to choose from and can read whatever I want. Also, it only weighs 7.5 ounces, so that's a lot better than carrying several books in my bag. Oh, and did I mention it's small and super easy to stick in my purse? I wish I had had it this summer when we were going to the Dr a ton for Chris, it would've been fantastic to have especially at the ENT where we regularly had to wait for over an hour.

What is it?

A few weeks ago we were driving somewhere, I don't remember where, but we saw this thing in front of us. We weren't sure what exactly it was... a car or a boat. It seriously was a boat with a wheel, driving on the road. It was going about 70 mph, and I know that because we were going 70. What would you call this thing?

My apologies

This post is for Sandy, who reminded me in my comments section that it was time for a new post. And it's also for my mom, who told me over the phone today that Sandy had commented that I need a new post.

The last month hasn't been too eventful. We've been getting back in the swing of things with Chris's health being a lot more normal. I've been playing catchup with my school work, since I kind of fell oh, 3 months behind. My class is due February 14th and I still have a ways to go! I keep reminding myself how much the course and materials cost, and I won't let that money go to waste!

We've been stalking Apple stores to get Chris the right new iPhone. He started out with a black one, but then realized it had some issues, and then wanted to return it and get a white one. Well, the supplies for this particular phone were somewhat limited so it's been quite the process! We actually ended up taking a day trip up to Austin to pick one up a few weekends ago because he was able to get one on hold for him at a store up there. We almost went to Ikea as well, but then I remembered the General Relief Society Broadcast and we decided we better just go home. Our trip to Ikea will just have to wait, and that's okay. We want to FINALLY get nightstands for our room, although I'm a huge fan of the 18 gallon buckets we've been using for the last 2+ years.

The Young Women are getting ready to have Young Women in Excellence, so I've been working with them on a special musical number. We also were asked to sing at a combined RS/YW Christmas activity, so we're getting ready to start working on a Christmas song. I'm thinking "Were you There on That Christmas Night" but I haven't decided if I really want to teach it to them or not. It's kind of a special song to me and I'm not sure I want to share it with the YW. Then it will be time for New Beginnings. I'll be glad for February to be over so the YW won't have to sing anywhere for a while.

OH! The Sunday before General Conference I went into Nursery to do singing time (they don't have a nursery music person) with each of the two nursery classes, and it was probably one of the best times I've had at church! The older class kind of just stared at me as I sang, until I had them march around the room singing Do as I'm Doing, then we had a good time. The younger class blew my mind! A few of the kids totally sang along (meaning they sang the few words they knew) with several of the songs, and they did actions if there were actions. My little friend Seth was in the younger nursery class and he was really excited to see me, and he sang along so well! A few days later he told his mom "Marci, Popcorn" as in "Marci sang Popcorn Popping" and it was pretty rad. He and his mom came to my house a few days ago to return something and he asked to sing Popcorn with me. It was super awesome. Nursery singing time is the best!

And there you have it, friends. An update from me :)

Confession

This week I watched all three Toy Story movies. Toy Story 3 makes me cry, every single time. It just makes me so sad to see Andy and Bonnie play with Buzz, Jessie, Bullseye, Rex, Ham, the Potatoheads, the aliens from Pizza Planet,  Slinky and Woody. I loved Toy Story when I was little and I felt like I grew up with Andy. It just breaks my heart to watch him drive away without his toys.

It's pathetic. I know. It's just a movie. But still, every single time the last 5 or so minutes just is hard.

And that's my confession today.

Progress!

I finished The Old Testament today! I'm only a few weeks behind now!

Also, I started walking at the park by my house with a few ladies in my ward. It's not quite like my old walking group, but it's pretty great! We walk four days a week, and my plan for the one day that we don't walk is to do a combo of Wii Fit and Just Dance!

Catch Up

I've been meaning to blog for a while now, but today I found myself with a little time and nothing specific to do.

Chris has been back at work for two weeks now (I think) and seems to be doing really well! His first few days were hard, as he had to get used to all the walking around and such, but we make sure he takes his anti-dizziness meds with him so that he can take them if needed. He hasn't even had to be using his cane recently! We're so happy to be seeing these improvements! He goes back to our PCP in a few weeks, and then at the end of October he goes back to the ENT to have the fluid levels checked.

I don't know if I ever mentioned this, but as part of all his testing he got allergy testing done, which revealed some major allergies to dustmites and specific types of pollens and grasses and lots of other stuff. I've gotten to increase how often I mop our entire house to help take care of all the dust. It's quite the task, since there is no carpet in our house, just tile floor. I've also stepped up on some other cleaning, like the vents for our AC. They get really dusty, and I tend to ignore them. Not anymore. Overall our house is less cluttered and cleaner because I spend a good chunk of time each day cleaning it.

In the two weeks that he's been at work it seems like I've done a ton of stuff. I had to get all caught up on my visiting teaching, and then get visit taught, and then I hadn't seen my friends in like 2 months so I  got to get together with them for lunch one day. A friend had a baby recently, so I made sure to go over to her place so I could meet the baby and chat with her for a little while. I've been quickly catching up on my scripture study challenge for the year. I'll be able to finish the complete standard works by the end of the year, it will just be a little more each day than I had anticipated. The young women need to start preparing two songs to sing later this year-one for YW in Excellence, and another for some combined RS/YW activity that will happen in December. Then I know they'll be working on something for New Beginnings... seems like I spend a lot of time trying to figure out songs they could sing then actually learning them. I got to accompany our ward choir for a few practices while the regular pianist was out of town-that took me at least an hour a day for two weeks to be comfortable with some of those songs. Years ago it wouldn't have taken me as long; I definitely need to work on my piano skills.

I've spent an insane amount of time in the last two months flipping through cookbooks, calculating sodium contents, and reading labels to make sure that things don't have MSG in them. I have a whole new list of food additives that contain MSG as well, so now I have an even longer list to check for. Made life a lot more complicated too. We finally had found some good options and then I realized that dang it, Yeast Extract is in a lot of things and that is a food additive that contains MSG.

Both of our cars had to be taken in for the Texas Vehicle Inspection this month, so I got to go through the Inspection Station 3 times in two weeks! And in the middle of those two weeks my car got to go spend some time with our friend Mario who fixed the brake line and the muffler so that my car could actually pass the inspection. I went to the same little Inspection Station each time, and on my last trip for the month the lady who had inspected my cars each time told me that if I came back one more time this month we would be automatic BFFs. I was tempted to take the car through again, but didn't want to pay the $14.50 again. I do look forward to next year when the cars have to go again, and hope that Stacy is still at that inspection station.

I also went to the library the other day. I checked out 6 books. I've finished a few of them, just reading at night while Chris reads his tech news, and on Sunday. Oh I love books! Once I finish the rest of these books I think I'll have to ban myself from the library (with the exception of the day that my already reserved copy of Gretchen Rubin's new book, Happier at Home comes in) and start plowing through school again. I have to finish my class by February 14th, and I'm not even halfway done. It's going to take some serious self discipline to finish on time. Yikes!

I'm trying to get back into exercising as well... while Chris was on disability leave we lived a pretty sedentary lifestyle since he couldn't do a whole lot. I think I'm posting this so that I'll feel like I have to do it since I told someone about it. I haven't decided exactly what I want to do... in a month or so I'll probably start running again, but right now it's still just too hot even early in the morning, so I'll probably do a combo of Wii Fit and Just Dance for now so I can do that in my air conditioned house. We've been forced to think so much about our health, and every little bit helps.

more slightly scattered thoughts

I guess it's been two weeks since I posted last. Since my last post, we've seen improvement! We had our one month follow up appointment with the ENT, where we got good and bad news. The good news was that there is less fluid in the inner ears, although there still is a way to go. The bad news was that the low sodium diet which we had been told could just be a temporary thing gets to become our new lifestyle. For good. That's kind of hard. I'd been holding back a little, clinging to what our Primary Care doctor had said about it being temporary. I hadn't done enough homework or found enough recipes because I thought we could survive off the same 8 recipes or so for a few months.

We got to travel to my brothers wedding, which was fantastic! We didn't think we would be able to, but the ENT gave us the okay! It was fun to be with all of my siblings, even if it was for a short amount of time. Chris did really well while we were gone, able to cut back on some of his medications and still participate in everything we needed to do (except that we didn't stay up til 1:30 [or was it later?] with my siblings the night before the wedding).

Today we went to run a few errands, and for the first time since May... Chris drove! We went to HEB, Bed Bath and Beyond, Costco, and Sam's Club. It was 102 degrees outside, but he did a fantastic job the whole time. We're noticing that he doesn't rely on his cane quite as much!

We see our Primary Care Physician again on Friday where we anticipate getting the official letter  allowing Chris to go back to work next week. According to the ENT, he'll still be on some of the meds for another 10 months, but we don't go back to see them til the end of October.

After talking to some women in the ward I learned that there is a family who has dealt with Meniere's before, so I talked to the wife about diet restrictions. She told me about a bread that has no sodium, about a specific brand of lunch meats that has no nitrates/nitrates, no msg, and depending on how many slices you use, a low(er) amount of sodium.

I'm still working on finding more meals that we can eat without having to leave out too many ingredients or doing substitutions. We're getting better at this! I'm figuring out what I'll need to send with Chris when he goes back to work next week-gotta make sure he has all the food that he needs so that he doesn't end up having to go supplement it with things from their cafeteria. We've been eating a bunch of bananas and grapes lately, and those are both easy things to add to his lunch.

Something else that we're struggling with now is getting back into a more normal sleep schedule. We've  been letting Chris sleep as late as he needs without setting an alarm, and that then means going to bed later at night. That also means that I've been sleeping as late as I wanted to because I wasn't about to set an alarm to wake me up. We've got to kick that habit so that he'll be rested enough to go back to work and so that I'll be rested enough to lead a normal life.

I haven't really touched my schoolwork in the last few months, so once he gets back to work I've got to jump on that and get caught up. I also fell behind on my challenge to finish the complete Standard Works in 2012. I just didn't have the mental capacity to read all 7 pages a day that I needed to to stay caught up, so now I'm playing catch up.

Anniversary

On our first anniversary we spent the day moving from our apartment to our duplex. My visiting teachers didn't show up to help me like they said they would, so I spent several hours that day cleaning every inch of that apartment on my own while Chris and a bunch of nice nice guys from our ward moved everything. I think we had Wendy's for lunch that day because it was in between our two places.

For our second anniversary we get to wake up super early (for us, recently at least) to go to an appointment with the ENT to see how much fluid has drained out of Chris' ears and to see what our game plan is. Then we get to go to two different pharmacies to pick up prescriptions, come home, and pack because the day after we are going to my brothers wedding! We are splurging a little on the diet and using a Groupon we bought a while back... we're having lunch at Red Robin! We're super excited to eat out somewhere, but know it will be hard on the diet.

Since Chris can't drive right now and he knew we were going to be going out of town right after our actual anniversary, he picked up a few surprises for me when we went to HEB today. We went to return some OTC medicine we ended up not needing, and then to buy bananas. The line for returns was a mile and a half long (okay, maybe only 4 people) so I got in line and Chris went to go find some good bananas. I found him sitting in a chair waiting at the door with some flowers as well as bananas. He felt bad that it was a little early and that it wasn't much of a surprise, since he couldn't just go to the store on his own, but I was excited.

The last two months have been pretty hard for both of us with him being sick. We were hoping when this all started that by our anniversary he would be feeling better and that we'd get to do something fun-a day at Six Flags, or getting massages...

I've decided that next year we aren't allowed to move or be sick on our anniversary so we can do something fun to celebrate!

Hangin' in there...

Last Sunday (the 8th) I cracked. Like hard.

Before church I had to tell Steph that I officially was canceling my trip to Utah for her wedding. We just hadn't seen enough improvement with Chris, so I couldn't leave him behind for 4 days.

After taking Chris home after Sacrament Meeting, I was heading to Sunday School when a member of the bishopric approached me and asked how Chris was doing. I explained the latest to him, and turned to head to class. Then he asked how I was doing. Oh man did he regret asking that question. He told me not to try to be a hero, but to let people step in and help us out. He encouraged me to ask for help with meals (which I was super hesitant to do because of the diet restrictions), and to let someone else mow my lawn, and to let my visiting teaching companion worry about doing the visits this month.  He also told me not to feel bad about taking some time for myself every once in a while. He had been caring for a family member who was ill and knew how draining it can be on the loved ones, so he told me to make sure I was looking out for my well-being too.

I don't think I stopped crying until after I got home, except for a few minutes that I pulled myself together to play the piano in Young Women's. I didn't ever make it to Sunday School. Instead I sat in the hallway with two parents who were each out with their almost 1 year olds. I talked to a lady in my ward named Jenny, and she just let me cry and tell her everything. It felt so good!

After church I was approached by a couple who has had a rough year because of various health problems. He's been hospitalized like 3 times since March... basically it's been a rough rough year. He asked me how Chris was doing, and asked about Chris's cane. He asked if Chris had gotten a blessing recently and then offered to come give him one (when I said that I was looking for someone to come give him one--both our home teachers were out of town). He and Jenny's husband came over later to give Chris a blessing. And then they offered to give me one too. Yeah... cried the whole time they were at our house. It was great to have them come and just talk with us for a few minutes. We laughed so hard, it was hilarious.

Monday morning I got a text from Jenny asking if she could bring us dinner around 5:00. Bless her! This meant I could spend my day cleaning and doing laundry instead of researching meals, counting sodium content, and grocery shopping. I just had to be alive when she brought the food. It's been more than a week and we are STILL talking about the delicious crock pot chicken that she brought us. The chicken was so dang tasty, the sauce was INCREDIBLE, and Chris was convinced that the broccoli was homegrown. It was all just so tasty. And low sodium! It was so worth asking for help, I learned a new recipe that we LOVED and that is totally fine for Chris to eat.

Thursday night was hard, I knew that I would've been at a surprise bachelorette party for Steph, and having one last sleepover with her before she got married the next morning. Friday morning was even harder. I cried when I looked at the clock and thought "oh, I would've been arriving at the temple about now" and "they're getting married now" and "now it's time for the luncheon". It was hard not being there, but I was so happy to know that while she was sad I wasn't there, she totally understood why I wasn't there, and actually felt bad for me. She was sad knowing that she couldn't even just come down here and have a girls night and make things better. I'm looking forward to the day that Chris is feeling better and I get to use my flight to head up to see her! I'm thinking General Conference weekend in October would be awesome, because of our tradition of watching conference together, but we'll see. I'll go whenever!

Friday the couple with lots of health problems invited us over to their house for dinner, and some time to sit in their reclining massage chair that they had gotten to help alleviate some of their pain. Oh man, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. We hung out at their house for several hours, with all 4 adults taking turns in the massage chair, with soothing music in the background, and having a delicious dinner! Chicken Parmesan. So good, and not too high in sodium count if you either make your own sauce or take the time to go through every bottle of sauce at the store to find the lowest sodium count. Their 5 year old asked if I could come back sometime and just play with her, it was so cute.

Later this week I'm getting together with my visiting teacher to make some no/low-sodium foods. She's been looking all over pinterest trying to help me find some things that we could enjoy. She found a no sodium granola that would be excellent at breakfast or as a snack, and it would be fantastic to have some totally sodium free snacks/breakfasts so that we can save our sodium allowance for lunch and dinners!

Tonight we're having Manicotti, and with the specific sauces/cheeses/everything I have to use with it Chris will only get 665 mg of sodium for 2 stuffed shells, and that should be enough with our side veggies to get him full! Since he's supposed to limit himself to 1500-2000 mg per day, we're pretty excited to see that this Manicotti is totally fine for him! I still am going to keep looking for lower sodium sauce, because that's where the bulk of the sodium comes from. I may just make my own!

We're getting better at finding meals. It definitely helped to have a few meals brought to us which sparked some more ideas of things to try. Oh, and we invested in a few different bottles of Mrs. Dash which is AMAZING! It's a seasoning that has no salt, no msg, and adds a ton of great flavor, depending on which variety you get. We got one that is for grilling chicken, one that is like garlic and herb, and I don't remember which other two we bought... Mrs Dash also makes some marinades that I'm looking into since they also would meet his diet restrictions! It's always fun to find something delicious with no sodium in it!

With all that said... Chris is kind of doing better? I guess. He is able to sit for longer periods of time. He doesn't get the headaches too often anymore which is AWESOME! It's actually pretty nice. He's to the point where we can play a few rounds of MarioKart Wii without having to pause it (unless we pause for a bathroom break... he's on a diuretic and goes to the bathroom way more often). He also asked if we could watch an old season of The Biggest Loser, so we started that this morning. With the most recent season he sometimes would catch little pieces here or there as I'd watch it, and he thought it was interesting, but wanted to watch a whole season. Hulu has most of the seasons, so I picked a season that I really enjoyed in the past and decided we'd start with that one! For any of you Biggest Loser fans, we're watching Season 9-the one with Sam & Koli, and Michael (who starts out at 526 pounds!). I think that Season 11 will be the next one we watch, if Chris wants to watch another season.

How ATK saved the day!

This book is my new best friend. For reals. When ATK compiled this cookbook one of the things they considered in each recipe was the sodium content. We ordered this book the day that Chris was told to eat less sodium, and when it came I started reading it. I was full of hope after seeing the nutrition info. The next five dinners that we have will be coming from this cookbook, and because of the low sodium content in each recipe, Chris can still have tasty lunches. Hopefully these foods still taste delicious!

Sadly, my Mexican Rice that I made last week using the Organic, Free Range, Chicken Broth that only had 70 mg of sodium in it... turned out pretty disgusting. Apparently Mexican Rice really needs sodium to taste good. Next time I'll just use a broth that has more sodium and control how much Chris actually eats. To eat it we ended up adding a bunch of salsa, which made it tolerable, but still kinda gross.

I love America's Test Kitchen and am so grateful for the friends who introduced me to ATK over a year ago!

Also... Costco's Pesto is delicious, and only has a little bit of sodium, and pasta has no sodium... So we'll be having Pesto Pasta often.

A few questions have been asked, so here are a few answers:

We don't know if this low-sodium diet is a permanent thing or if it's just when he's having episodes that we have to go with it. Even if it isn't permanent we will definitely consume less sodium than previously, but I won't try to track every single mg of sodium. We're working on getting him accustomed to different types of snacks that have no sodium, or minimal amounts of sodium, so that he can save his sodium allowance for the big meals.

There currently is no cure for Meniere's Disease. There are medications that can help control the individual symptoms, and once the extra fluid drains out of his inner ears, Chris will undergo Vestibular Rehab, to help train his brain again. After this, it is likely that he will be okay, however he can have episodes at any time in the future. Apparently the first episode is the worst, and they get a little better each subsequent time.

We also don't know what caused all of this in the first place. A lot more research needs to be done to understand Meniere's better.

We got Chris a cane last week, and it's pretty schnazzy. It goes really nicely with the Handicapped Parking Placard that he got yesterday. The line at the Disability Window at the Tax Collector Office (where you register your car, pay your property tax, and apparently get Handicapped Parking Permits) is a lot shorter than the regular line, and you get to sit while you wait. That was a nice experience.

On a different note... we enjoyed our 4th of July by watching our little city's parade from our back yard.  Then we watched a movie with some friends, and turned on the New York firework show! We've also got the Boston show on our DVR, I want to watch it soon too. That was also the day we had nasty Mexican Rice and Chicken Fajitas. The fajitas were good though, not nasty. Nothing says 4th of July like Mexican food, right?

This is HARD!

Dietary restrictions suck. And this is my angry post. You don't have to read it.

-Low sodium.
-No nitrates/nitrites.
-Very low amounts of cheeses.
-No MSG.
-Very low amounts of nuts.
-only 1 serving of citrus a day.
-only 1 serving of caffeine a day (that includes chocolate) [I'm not following this part. I'm getting as   much chocolate as I can to cope with all of this]

= WHAT THE CRAP DO YOU EAT?

We're finding that it's been so incredibly hard to do this diet restriction. I almost started crying when Chris asked what was for lunch today because I had no idea what to tell him he could eat. Pasta and rice are great, but you have to eat something with it (at least I can't picture him eating just plain pasta or rice), but the sauces you'd think to put on it are always problematic!

Salads can work... if your salad has no dressing (or just a teeny tiny bit), but when Chris has a salad he dumps the dressing on to make the vegetables more manageable.

Tacos or Fajitas can be a great option... if you make your own seasoning for it (which I do), but then the problem is that he wants like 4 of them, and that is almost 1000 mg of sodium just in the tortillas.

Maybe I just need to start making my own tortillas and bread, because holy cow, bread has so much sodium! Especially when you're making a sandwich and that requires 2 slices of bread, which can be like 300 mg of sodium.

I realized that our chicken broth that we normally use has about 800 mg per serving, but found some organic chicken broth with only 70mg per the same serving size. That makes a huge difference, but it also costs a significant more. I told Chris we may have to increase our grocery budget if we're going to keep eating like this. And I may need to buy more kitchen equipment if I'm going to be making our own bread.

Tomorrow in the mail we are getting a new cookbook that is all light and healthy meals. I like the idea of it because it has all of the nutrition info right in it, and tells you what to do to cut back on sodium.

The other hard thing is the foods that are in our pantry/freezer don't really go along with this diet. Chris will ask for a snack and I keep having to say no to everything he is asking for (mostly because of the sodium content) and instead am handing him applesauce (only 10mg per serving!) or grapes. He sees the crackers he used to always have and he wants them. Heck no, they're like 1/3 of his sodium allowance. Or the hot dogs that are chilling in our fridge. Nope, they've got nitrates. And sodium. Sorry, bud.

Some day I'm going to figure this out. In the meantime... maybe we'll just have Southwest Stuffed Peppers over and over again. If you leave out the tbsp of salt it calls for, and rinse your black beans really well, they aren't too bad.

The Past Week

This may be/seem super scattered, but I need to get this out while I remember stuff as it has happened. Here's what we've learned in the past week:

Chris went to the Opthamologist, where we learned that his contact lens/glasses prescription is too strong. After getting new contacts and waiting a few days to get used to them, his headaches seem to be less often and less severe.

We had our initial appointment with the ENT. After some quick initial tests we were told we needed some more extensive tests run. Those tests happened yesterday. We just got home from getting the results. For a 9:00 appointment we finally left the waiting room at 10:30, talked to the nurse for about 5 minutes as she took his vitals, and then at 11:00 we saw the doctor. He had results though, so we're feeling ok with it.

Chris has excess fluid in his inner ear, in both of his ears. The doctor said a whole lot of other stuff, but used a bajillion big words. I got that that was the problem and that it's totally treatable. There also was some other problem, but we need to address the inner ear fluid first because it may actually be causing the other problem. In three weeks we get blood work done, and in one month we go back to the ENT to see how his fluid levels have changed. He has to get allergy testing done, and that happens in 3 weeks. Apparently his allergies played a little role as well. I forget how allergies were connected.

Our diets have to change as well. Two different diets. A low sodium diet (1000-1500 mg/day), and a Migraine Diet. We have to avoid caffeine (no big deal, for Chris at least), eliminate nitrage/nitrite (kind of a big deal-lunch meats, hot dogs, ham and bacon... we love those), avoid cheeses (goodbye, Quesadillas and Grilled Cheese), and avoid MSG (we should've been doing this anyway, now we just have to start paying more attention).

A lot of those changes are fine with us, and are things we should've been more careful about anyway, this just gives us the push that we need. We just bought a groupon for Red Robin... guess we'll blow that low-sodium diet when we use it (oops!).

Tomorrow we follow up with our Primary Care Physician, and try and sift through everything that has happened since we last saw him.

If anyone is looking for something to fast for on Sunday (if you're the fasting type) I know we'll be fasting for Chris to recover, and we invite anyone to join us in that.

Surprise Packages

After all these posts complaining about how Chris is still sick, I have had a few bright, happy moments. Like the other day when the mail man showed up with a package for me. A package that I knew was coming, but didn't know the contents of, and didn't know when it would arrive. Turns out the package was full of all of these things:

Turns out I have a best friend back in Redmond who tried sending me this package months and months ago (was it for my anniversary? or for my birthday? I don't remember) but her grandma stole it because she saw a box full of candy. She just had gotten around to replacing everything, and the timing couldn't have been more perfect. There was a card that said for us to enjoy a movie night together and to share the food. Pretty sure I'm not sharing most of this. Pretty sure the last 3 weeks have been absurdly insane, and I have driven to so many doctors appointments and made countless trips to the pharmacy and grocery store to get everything we needed... I earned all of this. I'll be smart of course and not eat it all at one time, I don't want to gain that much weight.

The other fun surprise package that showed up at my door came from the UPS man. It had this inside:

.

It was from my husband, who pretended like he had no clue what was until after I opened it. It was his way of saying "thanks for putting up with me, here is a movie I know you've been keeping your eye on for a very long time." And then he watched it with me. And it was glorious. In case you were wondering, the hills are still alive (with the sound of music), and I learned how to solve a problem like Maria. And high on a hill was a lowly goat herd. And man alive, I love Edelweiss. Also, while we watched it I was reading some trivia about it on IMDB. Apparently Christopher Plummer (Captain Von Trapp) hated filming this movie and really didn't like working with Julie Andrews. He showed up drunk on several occasions so it wasn't as painful for himself. Who knew?

grrrrr

Three weeks. And still no solid answers.

Apparently it's not meningitis... if it was meningitis he should be getting much better. Now we're off to have appointments with an ENT (is it an inner-ear thing?), an Opthamologist (why is he feeling pressure behind his eyes? is his vision getting worse and that's causing headaches?) and depending on how those two specialists go, maybe even a neurologist. Thank you, USAA for excellent insurance, and for the ability to see all these specialists, and for giving us enough PTO that we're still earning money while he rests/sees doctors. Oh, and thanks to his manager and team for understanding and letting him have this time off.

I'm hoping he's seeing improvement soon, I'm going to Utah in 3 weeks, and if he's not better I'm going to feel awful leaving him for a few days. Plus there is the problem of him not driving right now... Can't really drive myself to the airport.

I rock.

Today I walked into Home Depot with a part from our toilet. I found the right aisle, found someone to help me, but by the time he got back to me I had already found the part I was prett sure I needed. He confirmed that I had the right one. Then I came home and fixed the toilet. Yeah, it was a super simple fix, the flapper just needed to be swapped out, but I did it and now we can use both toilets again without the guest toilet constantly running. But still, I did it. And I am awesome. Also, meningitis sucks, I wouldn't recommend getting it. Chris isn't having much fun with it.

Still Alive... Mostly

When I wrote my last post I thought Chris was doing well. He seemed to be doing well. But then he kind of relapsed. He was doing great, getting better, but then we got a little too excited and he went back to work. The next day he went to work as well, but then he came home before lunch time, and has been home all week as well. It's been a solid two weeks since our initial doctors appointment, which means it's been about 16 days since his crazy symptoms started appearing. In those 16 days he's been feeling kind of awful (or incredibly awful, depending on the day, and the time). In those 16 days I haven't done a whole lot. I've been busy keeping our house clean and trying to help him get better. When the doctor told him to increase his sodium, we realized we needed to change some of our meals, which meant several trips to the grocery store.  He's finally getting to the point where we think he'll go in to work on Monday. That's the goal. And I'm hopeful. It's been really different having him home for just about two solid weeks.

We've watched a few movies (random urge to watch Harry Potter anyone?), several episodes of TV shows (thank you, Big Bang Theory, White Collar, and various Food Network Shows for giving Chris the chance to relax), and done quite a bit of online research (on a whole slew of random things.... some kitchen items, kindles {do I want a kindle? maybe}, wedding gift shopping, reading random electronic reviews and demos) and done some reading. I've done most of a Sudoku book (thanks, Mom), mowed the lawn for the first time in my life, and done some coloring. We also fell in love with the America's Test Kitchen Mexican Rice recipe. YUM!  Here is some of our rice along with a fajita that I had taken a few bites from.

In the almost two years that we've been married we've had our eyes on what things parents bring to church for their kids to help keep them reverent, we've also noticed that some things are fine depending on the age of the kid (two year old with little cars=ok, but his 4 year old brother was a lot louder and out of control smashing his cars into everything and everyone around him). This is not an announcement, but over the last few weeks we've noticed some pretty sweet quiet books that look like they would be great for our future kids. And I've realized that by the time we have a kid who needs a quiet book I won't have as much time to make a quiet book. So while it's crazy I'm working on a quiet book as well as some File Folder Games even though we have no clue when we'll be needing them. Here are some of the file folder games I've been working on I'm obviously not done... there is lots of coloring, cutting, gluing, laminating, and more cutting to be done, but here is what I've got so far!

Commandment Counters:

Joseph's Crazy Coat:

 Lehi's Liahona Letters:

Word of Wisdom Winners:

Recovery

It's been several days now, but Chris is actually starting to improve now. It feels like thr last week and a half or so have lasted waaay longer than a normal week and a half, but I guess that's life. Our normal routine/schedule went out the window. I actually convinced Chris to take some naps and that seems to be helping him. Other than him being sick, things haven't been to exciting over here. I did mow the lawn for the first time. That's normally one of Chris's responsibilities-he mows and then I use the weed wacker along the edge of the house, and right along the fences where the mower doesn't get well. This time I did both jobs, and I learned that I actually kind of really like mowing the lawn. I'm glad it's mostly flat, and that we have a nice self-propelled push mower that does all the hard work. I've still been working on my BYU class, I'm about 1/3 of the way done with this class, and then just 7 more classes to go til I have my bachelors degree. I'm hoping to get through lesson 16 this summer. It may be a bit of a challenge since that would mean having to take the midterm as well, and that can take a while, plus I'll be out of town for a few days in July and August. I'm getting really excited for both of the weddings I get to go to this summer. Since I watched all of The Scripps National Spelling Bee I decided I wanted to watch Akeelah and the Bee to help me better understand the training and practicing that leads to the bee. I wish I had more exciting things to blog about, but since I don't even do Activity Days anymore I don't have craft projects on my mind too much. Hopefully this next week is a little more normal and I'll have something else to blog about.

Results

Short and sweet, the MRI came back totally clean and normal! That's an excellent thing, except that it still leaves us wondering what happened. Was it simple dehydration triggering migraine? Was it some virus? Or some inner ear problem? We wish we knew, just so we can prevent this from happening again, Chris had been down almost a whole week. The doc now prescribed some antibiotics to see if it helps speed up the recovery. I was so relieved when that phone call came!

Long/Weird days

The last few days have been long. Really long. Chris got sick on Wednesday night. He was super lightheaded, and weak and had a hard time concentrating. This continued on Thursday, and Friday. We got him to the doctor who thought maybe it was a weird variant of a migraine that was caused by dehydration. Blood work came back and left him puzzled, so today he got an MRI of his brain. Tomorrow we find out if they found anything. To say I have been a little worried for the past few days is the understatement of the century. The night after we found out he may need an MRI I had this horrible dream that he had tumors, the same kind that took the life of my seminary teacher from my senior year. That was the most horrible dream. We have since talked about what he would want me to do if that were to happen, but we're not planning on having to go that direction. And that's what's been going on with us lately.

I Promised...

Here is Jack who was freaking awesome when he misspelled idiosyncratically! The video is a little blurry, but it's the only video I've seen so far.

Obsessed...

Because I have some super awesome nephews, over the last few years I have learned to LOVE the Scripps National Spelling Bee. This is the third year I've had a nephew in it, but the first year that I have watched the entire thing. On Wednesday I watched pretty much from 7-5, although there were breaks and such, but my whole day was consumed with the spelling bee. I watched all 278 contestants spell their two words. Today I watched the semi-finals as I swept, mopped, and generally just cleaned my house. The finals start in a little over 1 hour. I can't decide who I am cheering for the most. There are a few kids who have won me over. I would love to see the kid from Jamaica win the whole thing. He is the most polite kid, saying "Thank you, Sir" each time Dr. Bailly would give him information about his word (origin, definition, alternate pronunciations, a sentence containing the word). Then there is the kid who has been in the bee the last few years and has always worn the same yellow striped polo shirt. He is fantastic. And then there is Lena. The pure excitement (and sometimes shock) she has after she spells a word right, running back to her seat... it's just contagious!

Besides my nephew, which obviously is the highlight for me... (have you ever watched your nephew on ESPN before?) my all time favorite moment of the spelling bee was when a boy named Jack was given the word "idiosyncratic" and he messed up. He got 2 letters into it, messed up, realized he had messed up, and turned it into the funniest moment of the spelling bee. He spelled it like this: I-O- *pause* -Q-R-S-Z-3-QUATRO-F-L-V-R-Q. Seriously, hilarious. I'm still laughing about this, and trying to find a video clip of it. If I do, you can bet that I'll post it.

Other highlights include people who asked 1. For a different word 2. If he could spell the word for them 3. For an easier word. Such funny kids!

The National Spelling Bee is freakin awesome, and I'll be sad when it's over tonight... I'm already looking forward to watching it next year! I'd love to thank Teag, Talm, and Tag for helping me find a new favorite tv program... if only it was more than just two days a year!

Hanon

As a kid I hated this book:

I just absolutely hated it. At the time I thought it was pointless, I was good at fingering (or so I thought) and I could play kinda fast. I thought I was hot stuff when it came to the piano.

This week I ordered that book from Amazon so that I can work on accuracy, speed, and fingering. Turns out I am WAY out of practice.

I got a new calling today (after being released from Activity Days) that will put me at the piano a little more often, hence the desire to improve my piano skills. I was called to accompany the "auxillary choirs" that our ward has-- our youth choir, our womens choir, and our family choirs. I don't have to play for the mens choir, because they got a accompanist today as well. Basically, I play for choirs/musical numbers unless it's the actual ward choir.

The confusing thing... is that my other calling (YW Music Specialist) already requires me to play for the youth choir, and we don't even have a womens choir. Apparently we're going to start an all female choir, and have them perform every 3 months or so. Yep. I got a calling that is only adding a special musical number once ever three months. This is super rad, except that now I feel like I don't really have a calling. I would have accompanied a musical number regardless of whether it was my calling or not.

In other news... about half of our ward was released today because 15+ families are moving out this summer. Dental School graduation was today, and now we'll lose a lot of people! Today we got a new YMs presidency, Primary Presidency, our Sunday School presidency all got released (except the president) and put into other callings... we lost primary teachers, the entire relief society meeting board, an assistant ward clerk, some sunday school teachers... Basically our ward business took about 15 minutes as our Bishop released a ton of people, and then turned around and issued a bunch of new callings.

And yet again, other news... I started playing Just Dance again on my Wii, and I freaking rock at it. If I was still in charge of Activity Day I would make sure to have a dance party this summer where we just play Just Dance and maybe call it an "exercise program" so it could count for something.

Books

The other night Chris was reading some articles online and he told me about one of them-- an article that found that people who own E-readers (kindle, nook, use iBooks on an iPad/iPhone, whatever other E-readers) read more than people who do not own such a device. I quickly asked him what number they quote for each. Apparently E-reader owners read on average 24 books a year whereas people who do not use e-readers only read 14 books a year. I looked at him and laughed a little- I do not own an e-reader but I have read 39 books so far this year, and it's only the end of May.

My question about this article then was whether they were only counting people who purchase books, because of the 39 books I've read I only own 2 of them, the rest were all checked out from the library or borrowed from friends.

If you use an e-reader... do you read more because of it? I'm pretty sure that I would read less unless all the books I wanted to read were suddenly free... because as much as I love books, I hate paying for them.

More Randomness

I have a lot of random thoughts.

I've gotten really good at using Southwest's website this week. I hope that I like the Las Vegas airport, as I have a few layovers there this summer. Maybe I should take some change with me? ;) Just kidding, I don't want to be carrying change around in my carry-on, it would be so heavy.

The Biggest Loser finale was this week. I am so impressed with how the At-Home Prize winner did. He was eliminated from the show on week 2, so he lost most of his weight (160 pounds) on his own. As for the person who won the show... it's incredible that he lost 199 pounds, which was 51.16% of his original weight. I'm curious to see what will happen with this show. Will there be another season? Typically at finale they give us a little sneak peak to the next season, or tell us that they'll see us again on (enter date here) when the next season premieres. They didn't do either of those things, and they still say they are casting for the next season. Maybe this season was just too awful?

Our ward music chairperson arranged a beautiful medley of I Often go Walking and Teach Me to Walk in the Light. It sounds incredible and I can't wait to practice it with the youth this week.

Remember how I broke half my toe nail off last year? It looks all normal now! After showing my toenail to a guy in my ward doing his podiatry residency he told me that it would heal better if I didn't have nail polish on it... which makes me sad because I have been keeping it painted basically since the injury because it looked better that way. Maybe it would've gotten better a lot faster? Well either way, my toe nails were painted last night and I'm loving it. I got sick of looking at naked toe nails.

We're having some pretty tasty meals this next week... two things from America's Test Kitchen (Chicken & Zucchini Stir-Fry with Ginger Sauce; and Cold Sesame Noodles), a yummy Betty Crocker Lasagna, and our favorite pasta salad, Southwest Pasta Salad from Our Best Bites. I got really excited as I got all the ingredients for these things at the grocery store. I'm especially excited for my Pasta Salad. It's super yummy and makes a ton, so I'll get it for lunch for a long time! Last time I made it I even ate it for breakfast a few times.

I won a Scentsy plug-in warmer and Scentsy Bar like a week or two ago, and they came this week. The warmer is in our guest bathroom, and the bar smells like Baked Apple Pie. It is absolutely delicious, but now I want an apple pie. I want to find a local consultant who has some stock so I can come and smell the scents before I buy them... I want a good citrusy bar, but want to be able to smell it before I buy it to decide if it is the right type of citrusy goodness.

I unlocked my favorite kart on MarioKart this week. When Chris and I play together we go through his profile, and he has unlocked a lot more stuff than I have, so we always both use the Dolphin Dasher in our races. Until last night I hadn't won the cup that unlocks the Dolphin Dasher, but last night I destroyed my competition and got that car unlocked. I was really excited. This sounds really dumb, but we do sure enjoy our Mario Kart.

I got rid of Pinterest a few weeks ago. Last night I almost deleted my Facebook too. Instead I just deleted like 40 friends, mostly people that clog my newsfeed and that I never interact with. I deleted most of my cousins, at least the ones from my mom's side of the family. I don't talk to them ever. I even deleted some of my old roommates... of course not my roommates from my freshman year. I would never delete 215.

That reminds me. Jenny is getting married tomorrow. Like, within the next 24 hours. I am so excited for her! I'm kind of jealous of my mom. My mom gets to see Jenny sometime next week and meet the new husband. I haven't met Mike yet. And I'm letting him marry Jenny. I hope SOMEONE from 215 met him and gave our official apartment approval? And Jenny doesn't count.

That also reminds me that two of my favorite people, that have August 3rd birthdays will now have May 5th anniversaries. Congrats tomorrow to Jenny & Mike, as well as Happy Anniversary to Marissa & Terry! I have a few other friends with August 3rd birthdays. I guess they'll have to have May 5th weddings as well. Then I'll always remember their anniversary.

Simply Orange makes some of the tastiest orange juice I have ever had. Today we bought Simply Orange with Pineapple juice. It is amazing as well. I'm glad that Simply Orange has been giving away coupons on their Facebook page. That was seriously one of the reasons that I decided not to delete my facebook yesterday. I didn't want to miss out on more orange juice coupons. Lame? Yeah, but that's just how I roll.

I guess that is enough randomness for right now. I'm sure I could go on and on.

Oh, how about Blistex's new Raspberry Lemonade Chapstick! It is divine, and I found it for only 97 cents at HEB. I still prefer my Burt Bees Mango Chapstick, but the Raspberry Lemonade is delicious as well.

so random I don't know what to call it

The last few weeks have been rather uneventful, but we've been keeping busy. We've had a few trips to Six Flags, we figured out that we love the carwash that is right by our house, the lawn mower we ordered finally was delivered, and our regular life has continued on. I haven't had as many migraines recently which is excellent!

I overcame my fear of cutting a pineapple. I was getting ready to help in the kitchen during a wedding reception for a girl whose family is in my ward, and the mom had warned me that we'd be cutting watermelon and pineapple. I watched a few youtube videos before I went so that I could at least act like I knew how to cut those fruits which I have never before purchased.  There were like 8 pineapples leftover after the reception, so tonight we had some delicious pineapple with our dinner. We almost ate the entire thing. I finally had to put it away because the acidity in the pineapple was making our mouths a little raw. We look forward to more pineapple now that I'm not afraid of it! (I will hope that my sister who lives in Hawaii and deals with pineapple all of the time either doesn't read this last paragraph or just laughs at me for waiting until I was 23.5 to cut a pineapple!)

Another exciting thing is that a new couple without kids moved into our ward last week, and she was so excited to meet me and find out that we don't have kids either! They're coming over this next weekend for dinner, I'm excited to get to know them better and for Chris to get to know them as well.

I've gotten two new girls in my Activity Day group, but one of them turns 12 in just a few months so she won't be part of our group for very long. During June, July and August we only will meet once a month, so I'm kind of looking forward to this. It will give me some time to plan more good activities. Also, I'm pretty sure that one of our activities will involve the girls helping me prepare some meals that I can throw into my freezer, there are like 20 pregnant women in our ward and I visit teach some of them, so I'm sure at some point this summer I'll be asked to take meals to people... or like half our ward is moving, so that could be another time to take people some meals. I think this would be a good service project for the young girls!

The Young Women (and Young Men) have been asked to sing in Sacrament Meeting on Mother's Day and Father's Day, so I'm working on finding some songs for them to sing. Hopefully something really simple like a nice arrangement of I Often Go Walking for Mother's Day (since I didn't know until TODAY that they're singing in two weeks). I don't think anyone would complain if we just go straight out of the Primary Songbook for this one! The Young Women also have to learn the 2012 Mutual theme song, "Arise", which they will sing with all of the other YW in our stake when they go to Girls Camp in just a few weeks.  The video below is the official music video for the song. Our version is a little less "pop"ish, as it was written to be Sacrament Meeting appropriate. You should definitely watch the video, just be aware of your volume :)

The things I am super super excited about are that tonight is the episode of Chopped All-Stars that features 4 of the Chopped judges competing for a spot in the final round of the Chopped All-Star tournament which will be next week. We're super excited for that. I'm also excited because this week is The Biggest Loser season finale! I'm ready for this season to be done, it's been super dramatic and kind of crazy, and I don't really like any of the contestants that are fighting for the title of "The Biggest Loser". It will be interesting to see how it plays out. 

Is it lame that I'm so excited about these two shows? We're getting rid of our cable as soon as Chopped All-Stars is over, so I'm enjoying as many of my favorite shows as I can right now since we won't see them again until football season starts! Oh! That reminds me. Jeopardy. We love Jeopardy! We've been recording Jeopardy every day for the last month or longer and watch it together either as dinner is cooking or right after dinner. I forgot how much I loved that show, along with Wheel of Fortune! Apparently I hadn't watched it much in the last 10 years though, I hadn't realized that Alex Trebek shaved off his moustache!

And there you have it. A look inside my brain right now. Lovely.