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?