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.