Whew!

Oh man, it's been a busy couple of weeks. And it's going to get even busier! But I just wanted to let you all know a few things that are going on.

1. I'm blogging for Diabetes Awareness Month again, on my other blog http://theinsulincrowd.blogspot.com/.  I wanted to do it daily, but that is just not going to happen this month!

2. I'm going to be driving to North Carolina on Monday all by myself! That's a 7 hour drive, and I'm a little nervous, but it's for a good cause. I'm headed down to High Point to help out my mother-in-law after she has surgery (don't worry, it's nothing life threatening, she just will need an extra hand for a few days).  Ben will then join me the next week for the week of Thanksgiving. So, I'll be playing nurse in High Point for a week, all by myself! I get along great with my in-laws, but it's still unnerving to be away from home for a week, helping someone else out. But, if anyone is dying to have a really long phone conversation on Monday as I drive down there, during which I can guarantee your call will be dropped a million times as I wind in and out of the Appalachian Foothills, I'd be happy to oblige.

3. Did I mention I'm teaching piano lessons now? (only like a million times already, right?) I love it! I'm going to be missing two weeks when I'm in North Carolina, and I'm actually sad about it.  As my friend "M". would say "I think I missed my calling."  Seriously, I actually enjoy this, and I get paid for it. Granted, I've only taught one highly gifted and motivated Brazilian kid, so who knows what it would be like to teach an over-programmed, bratty, privileged American kid who doesn't practice? But, right now I'm reveling in it. Sometimes I second guess my career choices (especially when I'm not actually working), but I think if I had studied how to be a piano teacher in school, I'd probably hate it. That's how I roll.

Okay, later peeps.

We walked.

And walked, and walked, and walked for the ADA Walk to Stop Diabetes this Saturday, and it was LOADS of fun!

Ben's Battelle team had tons of walkers that came. We had so many that we even got our own "team tent"! Woot! We got all kinds of free stuff, too. Ben scored 4 free t-shirts, and I even came home with 3! There were lots of diabetes-oriented vendors there, too, who were handing out tons of free (mostly useless and mostly gross-tasting) stuff too.

But, in the end the whole experience was really positive. We ended up raising over $300 bucks between the two of us. Ben's co-workers really ponied up the cash there at the end, it was amazing. It was great to go to an event like that and be around "my people," who all kind of understand what each other is going through.

Thanks so much to everyone who donated to this cause! We know everyone is pinching pennies these days, and that makes me even more touched by all the generous donations that everyone gave. So, here is a big fat thank you from me.

THANK YOU!

Updater-tron

Just a small update:

Both Ben & I reached our fundraising goals for the ADA walk! Thanks everyone who donatd/wanted to donate/donated in spirit! If you still want to donate, you are more than welcome to, as well. We'll gladly take your money. :)

So, I've been gluten free for several months now, and let me tell you what I'm noticing. First, I have more energy! Which is amazing, considering this is the time of the year when my energy usually nose dives because of the weather. I've been getting up earlier, and it hasn't been a challenge! What the what?! And, I'm even (gasp) enjoying it a little bit! Who knew life could be like this? Also, another added benefit is that I've lost 5 lbs without even trying! My doctor even said something about it! "Oh, you've lost a little bit of weight?" I told her that I hadn't changed anything except taking gluten out of my diet, and she said "We see that a lot when people stop eating gluten." So, I'll take it!

And we're gettin' our Halloween on here in the Carper house. This is probably my favorite holiday, tied with Christmas. We have purchased a pumpkin (from a pumpkin patch!), have decorations up in our yard (two dollar store styrofoam gravestones leftover from last year, that was a good$2 investment, those things hold up in the weather!), and are working diligently on our costumes which will hopefully be even as cool as last year's.

OK, life is good friends, hope all is well in your neck of the woods!

So Busy.

Somehow, it's only Monday, and it's already been the busiest week ever. And it's just going to get even more busy! Oh well. Next week promises to be less crazy.

One thing of note: I have a piano student! I was supposed to inherit a bunch from another person at church this school year, but for some reason that never happened, but I just had one randomly fall in my lap the other day, and we're starting his lessons tomorrow. I'm a little rusty, but I'm excited to be back in the teaching mode. I taught flute in high school to some kids in the ward and really enjoyed it, so I'm excited to start teaching piano, an instrument I'm even more comfortable with!

Also, it is just a fabulously gorgeous fall this year! So much better than the last few! The trees are amazing! Sometimes I think it's amazing that colors that bright occur naturally. God sure knew what He was doing!

Ok, Erin out.

Walk to Stop Diabetes!

Ben & I have signed up for the ADA's Walk to Stop Diabetes! If you want to come walk or donate some cash money, check out my page for the walk.

Yay!

Another Success!

Another gluten free success! I've been craving some serious baked goods lately, and our local GF bakery, which has very odd hours, was not open when we went by on Saturday. They make the most divine chocolate cupcakes. Seriously, so good that even Ben loves them. Mmmm.

But, alas, they were closed, so I made my own! With this recipe from Gluten Free Mommy. Oh, my goodness, they were SOOOOOOO good. I happened to have all the ingredients on hand, except for the buttermilk, but I just did the milk+lemon juice substitute for it and it worked out just fine. I topped them with my mom's fabulously tasty chocolate frosting, and they were the perfect Sunday night treat. They also ended up being the perfect way to help lift our spirits after being sorely disappointed that Masterpice Mystery wasn't on tonight! (seriously, PBS, why would you show a documentary about prohibition, when you could be showing more Misterpiece Mastery?!)

Mmmmm.

Gluten Free Goodness.

I made these gluten free cheese crackers today, and my goodness they were tasty! I can't stop eating them! Nom nom nom nommmm!

They are very close to Ben's mom's famous holiday cheese crackers, except since they are made from cornstarch and not all purpose flour, they are lighter and flakier. Next time I'll add some cayenne to give them the same zip that hers have, and they will be perfect. It's a nice recipe because, other than the small bit of xantham gum, the recipe is super cheap. All the ingredients can most likely be found in a "normal" kitchen. And since the flour substitute is cornstarch, and not some weird, "exotic" hard to find or expensive flour, these crackers are super cheap to make. Yum.

Mmmmmmmmmm. Seriously, it's all I can do to keep myself from finishing the whole batch off.

In other gluten free news: I've found all sorts of flours at the local Asian markets. We've got a CAM Asian market just down the street that has lots of rice, tapioca, potato, sorghum, and millet flours. They don't really cater to the Indian part of the Asia crowd, but we just discovered a couple of Indian markets that have lots of flours too (especially bean flours, rice flours, and millet flours). Fun! And by they way, peeps, spices are SO much cheaper at Indian markets! So, let that be a lesson for even the non-GF baker! If you need spices check the Indian markets!

And, that's my multi-cultural lesson for the day. You're welcome.

Fall.

It's officially fall in the Ohio. Let's be honest, it really is one of the only redeemable qualities Ohio has. Summer can either be brutally humid, or horrible rainy. Winter is dismal, complete with concrete sky and scraping windows every_single_ morning. But fall, is (usually) beautiful. And, it comes with apple cider, apple orchards, fields of pumpkins, the Circleville Pumpkin Show, among other wonderful things.

Here are some recent highlights:

• I went apple picking with a few friends. I bought 20 lbs. of honeycrisp apples and we have pretty much eaten all of them in less than 2 weeks.
• I learned how to make & can applesauce. (I probably won't ever do this again, unless I own an apple tree. It's not worth the opportunity cost.)
• Ben took a week off! Woot! He hasn't taken a nice, solid vacation in SOOOOO long and he (and I) needed it!
• We went to the Zoo.
• We also visited "Grandpas's Cheesebarn." We were the youngest people there, by about 30 years!
• We watched all 3 Lord of the Rings movies. Extended versions! And lots of the extra features! Yes, this makes us nerds.
• We've been going on lots of bicycle rides (thanks, K, for letting us borrow your bike!)
• OSU lost a game, and it made me (not so secretly) happy. Oh, how I despise living in a city that is so obsessed with football!

And there you have it. Plenty o' fun!

Apology in Advance. This is long.

So, I apologize in advance that this is going to be yet another post about gluten! And it's a long one. But, hey, it's my blog, and you can choose to not read it, so I guess I don't really need to apologize after all! I just need to get out into words all the things I'm thinking about, because somehow that helps me, personally, figure all my shiz out. For rizzle.

I'm not sure how long I've suspected that I have an issue with gluten. In 2005, right before a trip to Ghana, and especially right after I got back, I remember having awful stomach issues, but I chalked that up to my waxing and waning lactose intolerance that I've had since I was a kid. I think I started suspecting that gluten could be an issue after a few friends of mine were diagnosed with Celiac. These friends also happened to have Type 1 and that's when I found out that they pretty much go hand in hand. But, I'm stubborn, and sick of being "the sick one," and decided that gluten was not my problem, that indeed I did not have any more problems, and so I never tried to go gluten free to see how it made me feel.

But, my stomach/intestinal issues just kept getting worse. I was so opposed to the idea of gluten being the culprit, that I actually thought for awhile that I had gastroparesis which is a particularly nasty complication that can result from having diabetes (one that the doctors don't tell you about, but which I think is infinitely more scary than having a limb amputated--but that's a whole different post). The symptoms of gastroparesis are very similar to those of gluten sensitivity. Only I think it's worse, because if you have gastroparesis symptoms, you pretty much can't reverse it and your screwed. But I never told anyone about that, because I was so scared that that might actually be what my problem was! Yikes spikes!

Things changed a little bit after a couple of things happened. First, I got a new endo, and she immediately wanted to know if I'd ever been tested for celiac or if I had stomach issues. I never had, and she tested me (blood test came back negative) but said I could try going gluten free and see if that helped. Second, I spent a week with my awesome cousin and aunt in Cincinnati while he received tests for a particularly nasty illness that he has. He has to go gluten free, too. His doctor in Cincinnati wanted to know if any members of his family had celiac disease, or if any of his family had Type 1 diabetes! My aunt told him that I had type 1 and his doctor was super surprised that I wasn't diagnosed with celiac disease and made it sound like because I've had type 1 that it was just inevitable. Any way, spending that week with my cousin & aunt was eye opening and made me see that going GF was hard, but not as bad as I thought it would be! And, finally, I started tallying up in my head just how many Type 1's I knew, and just how many of them have been diagnosed with celiac/gluten intolerance. It was statistically significant, let's just put it that way.

So, I started trying to go gluten free. Which was actually not that hard, I didn't really buy lots of specialty foods and just started cooking more and eating out less and eating less processed stuff. I've been trying to gluten free as much as I possibly can for about a month or two now, and I can't believe how much better I feel! All those intestinal symptoms I had before (especially feeling bloated, and feeling super full by the end of the day) have pretty much disappeared. The thing that I have noticed the most, is that I actually feel hunger pangs again. I knew I was hungry and needed to eat before, but I wasn't feeling hunger pangs. You know, the feeling you get when you've been working hard in the yard or something all day, and you come inside and are starving and ready to eat a big meal, and when you do you are so satisfied? Yeah, I wasn't feeling that before, I was just feeling bloated. And I'm totally feeling that again now.

Also, my blood sugars are SO much easier to control! Holy freaking blood sugar cow. One of the reasons I thought I had gastroparesis before was because I would often eat and then go immediately low, treat it, and then spike up super high afterward. This is a sign of gastroparesis, because your body doesn't digest stuff like it should, so your insulin starts working before you start digesting food. You go low, so you treat it, but really you still have all that food in your body, so you didn't really need to treat the low, you just needed to wait (hours!) for your body to digest it, so then you go high afterward. Now, I'm convinced that was happening because my body doesn't digest gluten very well. Since I've been eating gluten free, this hasn't happened to me. But, the other day, I chose to eat gluten. Like all day long. I ate crackers, I ate regular bread, and I ate normal brownies. And oh how I suffered! I was super bloated and uncomfortable by the evening (not to mention the lower intestinal issues the next day). And at night, I had dinner, took my insulin, went low, treated it, and went super high afterwards! Just like before. I haven't eaten gluten since then, and that feeling is gone, and I haven't had a weird low-high situation like that.

Anyway, so as much as I am annoyed that gluten is the culprit in all this stuff, I am equally as excited to know that I don't have gastroparesis (sheesh, that is like my greatest diabetes fear!--other than dying in child birth like Julia Roberts in Steel Magnolias), and equally as thrilled to be feeling better! And, because I like to cook/bake, I'm equally as excited to experiment with new and different foods. I'm a little apprehensive about trying to live the gluten free lifestyle and letting the world know that I'm living it. Right now, only my blog readers and good friends know that this is going on. I don't want to inconvenience people, I don't want people to see me as "that girl with all the problems," etc. But, I know that the people that really matter in my life don't care, and are just glad that I'm doing what I need to do to be healthy. Why is it anyway, that some medical issues people are super duper ready to get behind and support, and others people are skeptical about, or find it annoying or inconvenient? For example: I've been reading things about schools that have decided to go "peanut free" or "allergen free" because of all the kids that have food allergies, and how some parents are in a total outrage about it. Why are people so ready to get behind kids with cancer, but not ready to get behind kids that will get seriously sick (and possibly die?!) because of peanuts? Shouldn't we all just support each other in what we need to do to be healthy? Any way, that's probably another post too, but I was thinking about that, so I'm writing it down.

Ok, this is long, but the basic point of this whole post is this: Gluten and me don't get along. I'm avoiding it, I feel better and it has helped my diabetes! Bonus! And also, mean people are dumb.

:)

Paul Farmer

So, I just found and read through some notes I took from waaaaay back in 2008 when I went to see Paul Farmer give a lecture here in Columbus. I've read nearly every single book this guy has written, and his ideas are what inspired me to want to study public health, and have really shaped the way I see health care and health systems.

So, this post is basically just going to be my notes from that lecture, so I have them in a place where they won't get lost or accidentally thrown away.

• Used worldmapper.org to compare areas of HIV prevalence to areas where physicians are working. Used it to illustrate the vast disparity in where disease lies as opposed to where doctors practice.
• Needs Assessments: Ask people what they need and then do what they say, not just follow convention (ex. G.O.B.I.=growth, oral re-hydration, breast feeding, immunization)
• Cost should be at the beginning of a conversation about treatment, not the end.
• IDA=international dispensary association
• Doctors have 2 choices: You can complain about people telling you their social problems OR you can see it as a privelage that they tell you their problems. When their physical symptoms go away, they'll start telling you about the social causes of those problems.
• Rwanda project is funded by the Clinton Foundation
• When speaking about structure and how it causes disparities: "It's easier to get from Newark to Paris than it is to get across Newark."
• Progressive vs. Regressive Health Care/Insurance Schemes: Progressive= spreads risk, Regressive=penalizes sick
• Use anthropology as a way of re-socializing problems, ex: obesity epidemic in one part of the world while we have a famine in another part
• You don't have to use physicians to do work for chronic illness. Physicians are a limited resource, you don't need physicians to treat illness, you need to get another resource. Must create new modes/modules or care, must get people to fund different care models.
• Our resources are mal-distributed, not limited
• A medical school faculty member asked in the Q&A session about what they should do for all their students who want to go do residencies/internships in underserved places (Africa, Haiti, etc.) Farmer's Reply: Students are driving the agenda and you faculty need to catch up! Discussed how medical schools are illequipped to train students in this type of medicine/social justice work even though students are dying to do it. He told that professor" I know your kids all want to do this, because they all call me and ask to help!" Asked if students need to be spectators of poverty or instruments of change. Talked about finding the right settings for students to work in, and that right now Universities are failing to support the public sector. Universities need to begin finding partners in underserved areas that are doing service work, not just research.
• Discussed gender disparities as a result of unequal access between women and men.
• Referred to the book "Women, Poverty & Aids"
• In Haiti, creating jobs was paramount in reducing health disparities, they created 2500 jobs in Haiti & half were to women.
• Talked about Rwanda's new mandate that half of their Parliament must be women "They are trapping themselves into decency through legislation."

Sigh! So inspired!

I need opinions!

My dearest readers of my personal blog:

So, I need some advice regarding my other blog, about diabetes. Diabetes Awareness Month is right around the corner, and I need some ideas/opinions about what to blog about this year. I'm totally getting ahead of the game on this one, but I thought I'd start now seeing as this will probably sneak up on me quickly!

So, I want to blog every day again for a month, but I'm not sure what to blog about. Last year I did a bunch of stuff. I covered the basics of diabetes for a considerable amount of time. I talked about the health care system a little bit, I talked about D-technology, and I blogged about some personal experiences.

So, I want to take approach things a little differently this year, but I'm not sure where to start. Do I focus solely on how diabetes affects me personally? Do I talk about some of the more in-depth nuances about diabetes or living with diabetes (I think that might be boring). There's a lot of interesting new diabetes research I could talk about too? What would you all want to hear more about? What do you think I could write about that would make someone more "aware" of diabetes and its impact on the world? Is there anything you personally want me to talk about? Should I just ask for 30 days worth of questions from people and answer a different question every day?

Opinions, please? :)

GF success, numero two!

I made these gluten free brownies, from my friend's website a few days a go, and OH_MY_GOODNESS they were so good! Ben even loved them, and he doesn't need to avoid gluten!

I couldn't tell the difference between these and regular brownies, and they were chewy and fudgey and oh-so-chocolaty, everything a girl could need for a brownie binge, and more!

Seriously, people, throw out any and all store mixes, and just make these. They are soooooo much better. AND EASY!

Thank goodness for people who have gone down this road before me!

Some thoughts on cleanliness . . .

(Random late-night migraine induced ramblings here, peeps, just FYI.)

• In my opinion there are a few things that should always be clean in one's house. First, the kitchen, or where ever you prepare food. It's just good public (and private) health. If nothing in my house is clean, you can bet my kitchen will at least be decent enough to prepare a meal in. After that is clean, then any rooms that guests might be in should be clean enough. So, living rooms/entry ways, that sort of thing. After that, it's a free for all. And of course, all of that should never be at the expense of your sanity or clarity. Because let's be honest, if your brain isn't "clean" (clear, sane, not overwhelmed) first, a clean kitchen isn't really going to be all that useful.
• Speaking of clean kitchens, cleaning my kitchen is almost always one of the last things I do before I go to bed. It's almost like part of my bedtime ritual, and it helps me wind down.
• Also, about clean kitchens: I learned by example from my Mom to clean as you go while cooking. She always did this while we were growing up. And while I didn't really have any formal cooking instruction from my mom, I must have just picked this up as I was watching her cook. I distinctly remember her washing spills off of the burners on the stove right after stuff boiled over, putting stuff away while other stuff was in the oven, etc. My Mom ran a tight ship in that kitchen, and I never walked into that kitchen and thought "what a mess!". She always said stuff like "Watch out, I'm slinging hash in here!" But even if hash was slung, she never just left it where ever it landed. She always swept it right up! Clean as you go, it's the right way to go! (Did you see how I just rhymed there?) It really is SO much easier in the long run! Thanks Mom!
• We finally bought a new vacuum cleaner. And it sucks! Big time! Woot! It's this Hoover Wind Tunnell. And I'm seriously in love, and grossed out all at the same time. I cannot believe how much dirt our old vacuum was missing! Ew!

OK, my counters are clean and sparkling, all my food is in the pantry, and the dishwasher is running its gentle, lulling, ocean-tide reminiscent sound. I'm off to bed!

I Accept.

Ben and I have been talking lately about all the craziness that can happen in life, and how it's kind of like those "check this box if you accept" EULAs when you download stuff or register for a web-site or service or something. How many of us actually read through those things?

Sometimes life can throw something at you, and you think "did I really agree to this?"

The other day, I'd had a particularly trying day. I had been dealing with this foot injury/rehabilitation, I had bruised my tail bone pretty badly (still hurting, btw), my blood sugar was low and my insulin pump was screaming at me because it was all out of insulin and it was time to change my infusion set. So, here I was, half-crazy from a low blood sugar, balancing precariously on my seat trying not to put weight on my tail bone, attempting to change my pump infusion site, and when I pulled the old site out to swap it with a new one, it gushed blood all over me. I wasn't anywhere near a kleenex, so I just slapped my had over the gushing to try to stop the bleeding, tried to stand up with half-inserted pump sites flailing tubing all over the place, while trying not to hurt my tail bone even more, and stumbled into the bathroom to get a kleenex. And, the blood was gushing between my fingers, but I did manage to keep it off of my clothes.

I got all cleaned up and put back together and got my insulin pump stuff all figured out, and then I just LOST it! Like, Ugly Cry lost it. I usually don't lose it about diabetes stuff, because I really do think it's a waste of time to feel sorry for myself, but at that moment I just lost it. Literally in a matter of 2 seconds I went from, "OK, I can handle this" to "I don't want to do this any more, I'm scared about the future, why me, why all of this?" And I had one of those moments where I thought "Man, I wish I would've read the EULA before clicking 'Accept' on this life." I was bitter, I was scared, I was hurt, and I was angry and I felt cheated. I thought that there was no way I would have chosen this for myself if I had known this is how life was going to be.

At times like that, all you can do is get on your knees, so that's what I did, and I said a little prayer, and this is the answer I got from God. I did choose this. I was fully informed about how hard this life would be, and I still chose it. I knew how great the end result of God's plan for me was, that I was willing to go through all the hard stuff to get there. And somehow, just knowing that I chose this in the pre-mortal life empowers me to continue on in mortality. Knowing that enduring tough stuff was a choice I made disarms the trials' power over me and gives me back power over my trials.

The Ugly Crying stopped. I felt instantly SO much better, and I was even able to chuckle about it a little bit. (I mean, c'mon, it really was kind of a ridiculous sight-- blood spurting, insulin pump trailing, hobbling all over the house). Perspective is a blessing.

One of my favorite mantras to repeat to myself I learned when I worked at the Center for Change. It is this: "We can do hard things." Simple, and powerful. We can do hard things. I can do hard things.

GF Success!

So, I made gluten-free zucchini bread today and it was a RAGING SUCCESS! Thanks very much to my good friend, we'll call her "Dia-T" (not to be confused with my other good friend "Tiny T") and her blog Gluten Free in SLC. I was surprised by a few things:

1. It was so MOIST! (I hate that word, but it is very appropriate here). All the GF baked stuff I've had until now has been super crumbly and dry. This was soooooooo good!

2. It tasted really good! The flavors and textures were very close to non-GF zucchini bread, and I only noticed a very fine grit right at the end of my chewing and right before swallowing.

3. It was so light! I was surprised at how light this seemed to me, compared to eating glutened stuff. I never noticed before, but when I eat glutened baked goods, I feel this heavy filmy-ness (I don't know how else to describe it) in my mouth. The contrast between that and GF baked goods was interesting and so different, and I can only explain it as feeling "lighter".

4. I didn't have itchy eyes while baking. So, I have always thought that when I make things with flour that I must be breathing in the flour dust and it is irritating my eyes or something, because that happens to me every time I bake. My eyes get itchy/watery and my nose gets itchy too. That absolutely did not happen today! And let me tell you, tapioca starch is dusty and I think I breathed in more of it than I actually put in my bread! Sheesh, that stuff flies everywhere, but I had no itchies after baking! Again, weird, but something I just took for granted was "normal" until trying something different.

So, I was very heartened by this initial success. I know GF baking/cooking can be hard, and I was scared and didn't want to fail and get discouraged and give up. I count this as a little blessing that will encourage me to persevere! I'm sure I'll make a bazillion batches of gross stuff in the future, but this was a nice start to my(very slow and reluctant) exodus out of the land of Gluten. Thanks everyone who had a hand in my first success!

Brain Cloud! I knew it . . . but I didn't know it!

How is it already the middle of August?! We've had a few cooler days this last week, and it made me realize that fall is just around the corner. Sad and happy all at the same time! We have been so busy, the summer has flown by! And I realize it's been a few weeks since I've blogged.

I've had so many things going through my brain lately, I'm not really sure why. It feels like there have been a lot of new and exciting things going on in our life, even though I can't really pinpoint what any of them are. Weird? My mind seems to have taken a "productive" or "creative" turn lately, and I have a bazillion projects and ideas that I want to do/work on that my brain is just overwhelmed and needs to find some clarity! So, if anyone has any suggestions on where I can get some of that, let me know. :)

Here are some things I've been thinking about of late,in no particular order, and probably leaving many of the things I've been thinking about out!:

1. Family History Work-Holy cow, have I caught this bug! And Ben too! We actually went out to the middle of Nowheresville, Ohio last weekend and tromped around some graveyards taking pictures of graves of people that Ben is related to! And I think we're going to do it for my side of the family in the next couple of weeks. Turns out we both have Ohio ancestors! And, don't worry, I'm still working hard on my Norwegian ancestry, although there's something going on with the Norwegian National Archives website that is making it hard for me to do more at the moment. Some sort of restructuring that I don't really understand because the announcement gets lost in Google Translation . . . (Tamsin? any ideas?)

2. Foot/Leg Rehabilitation-Stagnant, but with a possible breakthrough this evening. This has been a hard injury for me. I'm not used to not being more active, especially in the summer. I don't like having to be careful and patient. But, tonight, I stretched in a very different way, and was immediately able to touch my toes! right after! My hamstring has been SO tight, and this is what I believe has been the biggest contributor to my plantar fasciiitis, so a loose enough hamstring to touch my toes is a BIG deal.

3. GF Cooking/Baking- Thanks to the good ole' Type 1 Diabetes, I think I'm slowly heading on board the gluten-free train, never to return. I'm not testing positive for Celiac via the blood test yet, but I have tried spurts of GF eating and goodness gracious does it seem to make a difference! My digestion is slow and gross when I eat gluten, which makes my blood sugars very unpredictable. When I don't eat it, I don't feel gross, and I have predictable blood sugars. Ugh. I'm still totally in denial, and am right now of the mind that "if I ever test positive then I'll take it completely seriously" and until then am trying to avoid gluten when possible. Probably not the best attitude, but I'm not ready to make that behavior change yet! But right now, I'll eat it when we go out with friends, or if there's something particularly tasty that tempts me. So . . . it's all a big "we'll see" at this point. I did actually go out and buy some "alternative" flours and am going to start experimenting with baking using them. I love to bake so much, and if the time comes when I have to give up gluten completely, I absolutely could not live with out baked goods. So, I'm looking at this as preparation and having some fun experimentation time in the kitchen. Sorghum flour, tapioca flour and xantham gum, let's figure you guys out!

4. Missionary Work- With so many family members serving missions right now, missionary work has been a theme in my life lately. I'm a very reluctant member missionary (I'm a big fat chicken!) but lately, we've had little opportunities here and there to help out the missionaries in our ward and it hasn't been too scary. We've been reading from Preach My Gospel for FHE and it has helped give me a refresher course of the basics about the Gospel and the Church that would be helpful when trying to explain what I believe to other people. Plus, it's just beautiful to remember that God has a plan for everybody, that He's involved in our lives, and that Someone cares about us. Those really are the main messages about the Gospel that we want to tell people, right? Beautiful!

5. Random Projects-I have ever so many projects rolling around in my brain that I want to work on. Anything from "Make the switch to natural household cleaning products" to "lose some weight" to "paint some portraits" to "finish a quilt you started 1.5 years ago" to "organize food storage" to "finally finish reading the Old Testament" (sheesh). I even have a little notebook that I write down all the projects I want to do in, so I don't forget about them. Then, when I finish them, I can cross them off. On the project note-

6. Painting-My heavens why haven't I painted in so long!? I recently picked up my brushes again after an I-don't-even-know-how-long painting hiatus, and man does it feel good! There is something about linseed oil that is soothing to my soul. SOUL SOOTHING, people! Maybe it's the heavy fumes? I bought an easel (this one, only in black-thank you 40% off on-line coupon for Hobby Lobby), got an old LP to use as my palate (thank you Mrs. Kretchmar's art class for this idea), set myself up in the spare room and started painting again. Also, I trashed the liquin my BYU art instructor had me start using, that stuff ruined my painting for awhile, I think.

And that's my brain. Cloudy, yes. Exciting though, I think so.

Oh, and did I mention I rocked my latest A1C? 6.5, baby!

Another great quote from the Ensign:

So in the August Ensign, the first article is about Love at Home and contains a bunch of quotes from President Monson. Here's one of the quotes I really liked:

"Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved."

A Call for Conviction

Oh, how I love The Ensign! I love that we can get a magazine every month FILLED with amazing talks, lessons, poems, songs, stories and art all about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I absolutely loved this talk by Elder Holland that was in this month's Ensign: Faith to Answer the Call. It's about pioneers, but more about having and developing faith and strength. My favorite quote:

"And so I issue a call for the conviction we all must have burning in our hearts that this is the work of God and that it requires the best we can give to the effort. My appeal is that you nurture your own physical and spiritual strength so that you have a deep reservoir of faith to call upon when tasks or challenges or demands of one kind or another come. Pray a little more, study a little more, shut out the noise and shut down the clamor, enjoy nature, call down personal revelation, search your soul, and search the heavens for the testimony that led our pioneer parents. Then, when you need to reach down inside a little deeper and a little farther to face life and do your work, you will be sure there is something down there to call upon."

Norway.

I'm so completely saddened by what has happened in Norway today. My thoughts have been turned towards Norway a lot these last few weeks as I have been fervently working on some genealogy and have discovered so much about my Norwegian ancestors. I was lucky enough to have made some amazing and dear Norwegian friends in college, and my heart just aches for them and what they must be feeling right now.

Since I first heard the news about the bombing, and then the shooting and all of the details that have been coming out about the two incidents, I keep thinking back to how I felt on September 11, and have been just aching for my Norwegian friends and their families and their fellow countrymen and how they must be feeling today.

I don't really know where I'm going with all this, I just wanted to let them all know that I'm thinking about them, praying for them, and am just praying for peace in this crazy world.

We're having a heat wave . . .

. . . a tropical heat wave! The temperature's rising, it isn't surprising (etc.)!

Seriously guys, it's crazy hot here! We've been in the mid 90s all week with humidity in the 60-70%! Don't get me wrong, I can handle my heat, but when you slap on that 60-70% humidity, it is ROUGH!

We're having something called an "extreme heat warning" or something like that, and they (whoever "they" are) are telling everyone to stay inside, drink lots of water, check on your elderly neighbors, etc. They're even opening fire hydrants all over town to help people cool off. It's kind of good that they are opening them, because if they city doesn't do it, people will just open them on their own anyway and that creates all kinds of problems (or so the local news tells us). Even our poor air conditioner, which usually does an amazing job, is struggling to keep up with the heat. We have it set at 70 and for the last couple of days it has struggled to keep our inside temperature at 72/73! Poor thing! There is just too much water in the air!

But, it's really not all that bad, and I'll take the heat and humidity over the cold and grey ANY day. The sun has been shining non-stop for a week now, which is quite the achievement for little ole' Ohio! I think it's going to be like this until Monday, and hopefully then we'll just have some normal Ohio summer weather (hot in the day, storms at night--love it!).

And until then, I'll keep singing and dancing to music from "White Christmas." :)

A visitor!

We have had a busy week this past week! Ben's mom came up for the week for a visit! Ben's dad works in Dayton, commuting every Monday morning 7 hours from their home in High Point, then working 40 hours in 4 days, and then drives back Thursday night! Talk about a long commute! Well last week, because of the holiday, he came up on Tuesday & left Friday and he brought Ben's mom up with him to spend time with us! It was so fun!

We went to the Columbus Zoo, took her to the Church historic sites in Kirtland one day, visited the Columbus Park of Roses, made a cheesecake, ate at City Barbecue (and had some Cheerwine!), had Graeter's ice cream, and generally just had a grand old time. We'd love to have her back anytime. And we'd love to have any of our family or friends for a visit any time, too!

On Saturday we went to the Church cannery/storehouse for the first time to can stuff for our own home food storage. I'd never done that before and it was SO fun! We spent about $30 and got tons of food storage. We're really excited to go back and expand on what we got this time. Every time I go to the Bishop's store house or to help with various church welfare projects, I'm always so impressed with the church's welfare system. It runs so smoothly and every time I interact with it in some way it is so easy for me to feel how inspired that program is! As a past recipient of church assistance myself, I have such a tender spot in my heart for this program!

Any way, it was just a really great experience and it's been a great week!

My Yearly Political Rant: Updated

The Ohio house has just passed what has become known as "The Heart Beat Bill" and it now goes on to the senate, where no one is sure what is going to happen with it. Hopefully they'll realize how ridiculous it is, and strike it down. While I agree there need to be certain protections in place for fetuses, this bill is especially ridiculous for two reasons:
1. It is being reported that there are NO provisions in this bill for rape or incest. This bill makes abortion illegal after the first detectable fetal heart beat, which they are saying is around the 6th week of pregnancy. I think this is an unimaginable position to put a women in who has found herself pregnant because of rape or incest. How many women even know they are pregnant by the 6th week? This is an even more severe position than the stance the Church takes on abortion.
2. Groups on BOTH sides of this issue (both pro-choice & pro-life) admit that if this bill passes it will probably face a lengthy challenge in the courts and eventually be struck down and found unconstitutional per the Roe v. Wade ruling. For a state that is so budget conscious these days, it seems like this is a ridiculous way to spend our time and money.

I'm just sayin'.

OK, rant over. For now.

Misterpiece Mastery.

Nerdy Aside: Did you all know that it's about to be Masterpiece Mystery season on PBS again?! Every Sunday night, Ben and I just PINE away for a little Poirot, or Inspector Lewis, or the new Sherlock Holmes, or whatever this new season will have in store for us. We are NOT fans of Masterpiece Classic, and rarely fans of Masterpiece Contemporary, but oh how we LOVE our Masterpiece Mystery! Woot!

OK, now that I got that out of my system, on to other things. Probably equally as nerdy, though.

1. My foot/heel/plantar fascia rehabilitation is a really pain in the . . . foot! This is seriously cramping my summer style. Flip flops are apparently not the footwear of preference for podiatrists' patients. Boo. Hiss. Also, doing the same PT stretches over, and over, and over, and freaking over again is super boring. Zzzzzzz. See? I just fell asleep doing them!

2. Our plans for a summer excursion westward-ho tour of Utah/Arizona are temporarily/permanently on hold/put off. What with having to buy a new car, and practically purchasing a robotic organ (insulin pump + CGM=semi-functional pancreas) this year, our stash of cash has been depleted and we have a solid financial policy in our house not to put things on a credit card we can't pay off quickly. Airfare is EXPENSIVE these days, peeps! What happened to $99 specials?! Maybe we'll get out there in the fall, during the "off" season? I know you'll all be in mourning for weeks after this announcement, and I'm sorry to disappoint my adoring fans, but "in these Economic Times" (barf, gag) one must do what is best for one's bottom line.

3. Speaking of bottom lines, did I tell you that this foot injury is also seriously cramping my exercising style? Sheesh! This little bottom does not tone up on an elliptical trainer. No, siree! And I am currently under strict orders to not do anything high impact. That's right, I have a doctor's note that gets me out of running! Ha! If only I'd had one 15 years ago, it would've saved me a lot of junior-high heartache. So, any way, that extra marriage-weight I've been putting on will just have to wait a little while to come off.

4. If I seem to have been especially snarky in this post, it's because I'm battling day 2 of a migraine, and don't have any serious pain killers in the house (where is some oxy-whatever-you-call-it when you need it?!) and am seriously contemplating using Ben's drill that is sitting unused in our basement to bore a hole in my skull to relieve the pressure. That makes sense, right?

Fun fun fun.

Did I tell you my sister-in-law is going to Thailand on her mission? I think I did. Last weekend we went down to North Carolina so we could be with her as she went through the temple for the first time. It was so great to be there with almost the whole Carper family! We had lots of family dinners, complete with Cheerwine, and just generally lots of fun. My sister-in-law showed us all the new outfits she bought for her mission, and I must say, sister missionaries are allowed to look a lot less frumpy these days. Not that she would ever look frumpy anyway, she has an impeccable sense of style. Any way, she doesn't have to wear panty-hose (the world's most pointless invention) and she's not even allowed to wear long skirts! I think the church is trying to move away from having people mistake our sister missionaries for fundamentalists. :) No Jody dresses for this missionary! Also it sounds like they have different rules in Thailand about how to dress because it is just too dang hot to wear frumpy clothes any way. So, we're super excited for her. She is going to be an absolutely amazing missionary.

While we were there we also got to help my brother-in-law and his wife move into their brand new home. It's a beautiful home, in a great neighborhood, and they're already fixing it up and making it their own. My sister-in-law is amazing at decorating, and she created this beautiful and fanciful playroom in their new house for their girls. I can't wait to see what the whole house looks like when she's done with it. One of these days I'm going to have to get her up here to decorate my house.

We drove up and down with Ben's dad, who is currently working in Dayton. He drives up Monday morning, works a 40 hour week, and then drives back to High Point on Thursday night. That's a 14 hour total commute and nearly 1000 miles! Hard core. It was fun to drive up and back with him, though, and I think he appreciated the company since he usually makes the drive by himself. We didn't have to put the miles or gas on our car, and we didn't have to drive and could just watch the scenery go by. I love the Appalachian mountains! So beautiful!

After my sister-in-law leaves for her mission, my mother-in-law is going to come up to Ohio when Ben's dad comes up and spend a few days with us, which we're looking forward to! I can't remember the last time we had visitors! I think it was C. Burnside about a year ago! Hooray! Yay for summer fun!

It's official!

I'm a gimp! Well, not quite. I have officially seen a podiatrist for this annoying heel pain I've been having. They said I have plantar fasciitis, and they have taped up my foot! For a WEEK! Apparently the tape is supposed to act as a support for my arch, but I'm skeptical. They took x-rays, and while I don't have any broken bones I do have heel spurs on each foot. They looked kind of gross on the x-ray. But also kind of cool, like I'm growing horns on the bottom of my feet. Or scales. Or something reptilian. Apparently the spurs aren't what cause my foot to hurt though, it's just the inflamed plantar fascia. Also, I have specific stretches I'm supposed to do, and I have to take an anti-inflammatory for awhile. And on top of all that they gave me this really dorky brace that I have to wear when I'm sleeping in order to stretch out my plantar fascia It looks like this.

And now I feel like a big dork. A big, OLD, dork.

April Showers bring more May Showers?

Holy Hannah, have we had some crazy storms here the past few days. We just can't seem to get a weather break for more than a day! The month of May has consisted of two straight weeks of rain (and subsequent flooding in a lot of the lower lying areas), followed by about 2 days of sunshine. Then more rain, and now a whole WEEK of storms!

Luckily none of these storms have spawned tornadoes in Columbus, but there have been tornadoes north of us, south of us, east of us, and west of us. Ridiculous! We are on pins and needles here, people!

Luckily, we are well prepared for a disaster. Well, compared to most people, probably. We have 72 hour kits, and a bunch of water all stored in our nice basement. Oh, how grateful I am to have a basement in a state that gets so many tornadoes! After we saw all the footage from the Alabama and Joplin tornadoes, I told Ben that as long as we still live in tornado alley, we WILL live in a place with a basement. That's the only way you could survive a really bad tornado!

OK, enough about tornadoes, already! In fun news, we are going down to North Carolina tomorrow to spend the weekend there! Ben's sister is leaving for her mission soon to go to THAILAND and she is going through the temple for the first time this weekend. So, we are going to go down for that! We are SO excited for her, she is going to be the BEST missionary! Also, because she is going to Thailand, that means all of the kids in the Carper family who went on missions got called to foreign missions! Ben and another brother of his both went to Brazil. Ben's oldest brother went to the Philippines, and his younger brother went to New Zealand-Mandarin Speaking! Between them all, they know a bunch of languages!

Also, one of my cousins just got called on a mission to South Dakota! And another one of my cousins is currently on a mission in Minnesota! And all these new missionaries are women! I'm so proud of my cousins/sister-in-law! Way to represent the ladies!

OK, that's it. I'll keep you all posted on the storms.

Wussy Injury Update

Remember that time I went to Urgent Care for cutting my lip open with my reading light? And the doctors probably secretly mocked me? And then told me it was no big deal and that I didn't need a stitch and that it would heal up just fine and in a couple of days?

Well, it's been about a month, and I still have a scar. And I think it's going to be permanent. Stupid Urgent Care.

Battlefield: Cincinnati!

Favorite Cousin Erin, reporting in from Battlefield Cincinnati!

I have been honored and privileged this week to serve under the command of the "Little Warrior" Marky Jeanes and his troops (a.k.a. Lynette, his mom)! Mark came out to see a special doctor at Cincinnati Children's hospital who knew how to do a special test. This hospital is Numero Uno in the nation for GI/Colorectal stuff, so our not-so-little anymore "Little Warrior" was in great hands!

Mark and Netti arrived Tuesday afternoon at the Cincinnati/Kentucky airport, and left Sunday morning. Tuesday night we got to spend hangin' out and discovering all the cool stuff at the Cincinnati Ronald McDonald house. That place was AWESOME! Wednesday through Friday were spent on the battle front at Cincinnati Children's hospital, during which Mark led the troops valiantly and bravely to a glorious victory Friday afternoon! It rained during the whole "battle", but was totally sunny and beautiful when Mark and the troops got out of the hospital. During the hospital stay we spent a lot of time watching cool movies like Green Beret & Independence Day, and we shared annoying videos with each other like "Annoying Orange" & "Friday".

After bustin outta that joint Friday afternoon, Mark & the troops spent some time in the beautiful Cincinnati sunshine! Saturday, favorite cousin-in-law Ben came down and we all went to visit the Cincinnati Zoo! We got mooned by a lot of animals! We followed the Zoo trip with a trip to Micky D's for a Black Angus Burger and shakes. Mmmm mmmm! We really were lovin' it! After an awesome game of hide-and-go-seek in the super cool RMH playground, where Mark & cousin-in-law Ben showed off there amazing hiding skillz, Ben & Erin had to leave to go back to Columbus. And the next day, Mark & Lynette flew back to the home base in Utah.

While we loved having the Little Warrior and his support troops here for their deployment in the Ohio, we sincerely hope the next time we see them, they won't have to have any hospitals involved! :)

Marky, it was a pleasure and honor serving under your command! And, one more thing:

Wazzzzzuuuuuuuuupppppp!!!

I'm trying to stay awake so I will blog.

I'm trying to stay awake as long as I can, because we have a gigantic line of tornado producing thunderstorms heading our way. Because Ohio is awesome, these storms will be hitting the Columbus area around 2am, right in the middle of when we're sleeping! Ben could sleep through a train coming through our bedroom, and I can't sleep without a fan on, which blocks out the noise of the tornado warning sirens. So, I'm going to stay up and watch the weather reports to make sure we'll be OK and so I can hear the tornado sirens if they go off. We live right next to a high school where one set of the city's sirens are located, so when they go off we can hear them nice and loud, unless we're sleeping! So, I'm trying to do things to keep myself awake, and blogging is on the list!

Here are things of note in the Carper household, in no particular order:

1. I have rediscovered Fresca. And consequently am making it my personal mission to drink enough of that sweet nectar to fully stock up our supply of emergency water storage containers.

2. We bought a car. Turns out we both have amazing credit (my credit score is one point better than Ben's--I'm just sayin') and we got a great interest rate on a loan through our Credit Union. And we desperately needed a new car. So, good credit + tax return + desperate need = New Car for the Carpers! It's a 2008 Ford Focus, it is a not-ugly color of green, and we love it. It makes the pot-hole ridden streets of Columbus much more pleasant to drive! And it has a CD player with an auxiliary port for our iPod. And apparently it has some sort of voice "sync"-ing thing that allows you to use your voice to have the car turn stuff on, or make calls on your phone. I don't think we'll ever use that. Now if only we can keep this car from being broken into, everything will be great! Knock on wood. Here is a picture of it. We've already driven it to Cincinnati and back.

3. We went to Cincinnati! We went to visit our good friend Mary Ellen (a former grad. school buddy) who now lives and works in Cinci. She has season tickets to the Reds games, and invited us down for a Saturday game. It was both Ben and my second MLB game EVER! They played the Pittsburgh Pirates, and WON! And there was even a GRAND SLAM during the game! It was freezing cold and a little bit rainy, but we had great seats and enjoyed all the classic baseball game fare like overpriced hot dogs and singing "Take me out to the ball game" during the 7th inning stretch. Awesome. Thanks Mary Ellen!

4. I might end up having up to 6 piano students in the fall! One of my fellow church members teaches piano, and has too many students already and wants to send some potential students my way. Yes, please!

And that's all for now.

I'm so tired. I hope I can make it until the storms pass . . . Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

My second nerdy injury in under a week.

So, if you suffer through this blog, you most likely read my recent entry about my (wussy) trip to urgent care. Well, because I am all kinds of awesome, I've managed to give myself another (nerdy/wussy) injury, less than a week after my last one.

I've decided to start painting again, and busted out my old art supplies earlier this week. I've been doing some sketching with my charcoal pencils in preparation for a few paintings I want to try. My pencils are old, so I managed to wear down the tips really fast. I lost my sharpener, so yesterday I dragged Ben to a craft store with me to buy a new pencil sharpener. You know, the old school, insert pencil, twist by hand ones? Last night, I sat down to sharpen my pencils, and decided it would be a good idea to sharpen my entire collection. By hand.

Turns out, it's a really quick and efficient way to give your self a fatty thumb blister.

Nerdy Injury #1: Cut open lip with the light you use to read in bed.

Nerdy Injury #2: Blister from sharpening pencils!

Sheesh.

My (Wussy) Trip to Urgent Care

So, Monday morning started out much like any other morning. Ben got up, showered, woke me up to say morning prayers before he left for work around 7am, and I stayed in bed a little longer. I was still half asleep, but needed to test my blood sugar & take some insulin. I turned on this little flashlight thing to help me see that I keep next to my bed and usually use to read by at night.

I must have set the light on my covers while I was fiddling with my insulin pump, because after I was done fiddling, I swooshed the covers back towards me to try to tuck myself back in bed for a few more minutes of sleep, when WHACK! That stupid light smacked me right in the mouth!

At first I thought I had cracked a tooth, because it was so loud! When I felt around my mouth with my tongue, I realized all my teeth were still intact, but I started to taste blood. Grrrrreat. So, I stumbled out of bed (insulin pump trailing behind) and into the bathroom only to see a gigantic, fat, bruised lip with a cut that was bleeding like crazy.

And, instead of rationally dealing with it, I TOTALLY FREAKED OUT! I attribute this to two things:

1) Head/face wounds bleed a LOT more than normal cuts, so they can seem deceptively severe.

2) A few years ago, a co-worker of mine had a daughter that got a small cut on her lip. They were just going to brush it off & let it heal, but decided to go to the doctor just in case, and she ended up having to have a plastic surgeon stitch it up! She explained to us, that while the cut was small and only needed a few stitches, they had to make sure the stitches were super well-placed because of the vermilion boarder on your lip. If you don't stitch it back together just-so, you can end up looking like you have a wonky lip once your lip heals.

I did NOT want to have a messed up vermilion boarder (yes, I'm vain). And, I was too chicken to try to determine how deep the cut was, because it was bleeding all over the place.

So, I called Ben. And made him come home & take me to Urgent Care. And when I got off the phone and was waiting for him to come home, I cried. Hard! In my defense, it really hurt, I had basically woken myself up by smacking myself in the face with a hard plastic object, and it was only 730AM--NOT by best time on a normal day, let alone on a day when I try to beat myself up.

To make a long story short(er), we went to Urgent Care, I iced the crap out of it while waiting to be seen by the doctor, it wasn't deep at all, it didn't even need one stitch, and I'm pretty sure I was the laughing stock of Urgent Care that day. "Hey, did you see that lady who came in for a paper cut on her lip? Haa haa ha ha ha ha!"

Yeah.

Finally!

Whew! A lot has been going on in the Carper household these past few weeks, which is why you haven't heard from me in a while.

Most notably, I finally got both my new insulin pump and my new continuous glucose monitor (CGM)! And today I officially started pumping and CGM-ing!

I will post pictures soon, and will probably write a detailed post about it on my diabetes blog, but can I just tell you how much I'm already loving this? If only I could have had this technology earlier, I think it would have saved a lot of my heart/nerve/liver/kidney/eye cells. ;)

In non-diabetes related news, our good friends in our ward, the D-family, just had a teeny tiny baby girl at the beginning of March, to which we are the unofficial godparents. :) I think we were awarded this title mostly because we helped her mom survive some seriously awful two-weeks of early pregnancy while her dad was in another country. But teeny baby G is super cute, so we'll gladly accept whatever responsibilities come with Mormom God-parenting. (Mostly, I think it just involves doting, at which we are very adept.)

Okay, that's all for now. These next couple of weeks will probably just involve a lot of blood sugar testing, highs, lows and doctors visits, so I probably won't post much on this blog, because it will just be plain boring and tedious. Test, high, bolus, low, eat, high, test, low, bolus, etc. That's just how things go with a new pump until you get all the basal rates right, so I won't bore you to death with the details. But, if anything exciting happens, I'll be sure to let you know!

Hand Carts-Or my yearly political rant. Consider yourself warned.

To quote my friend K's grandma (I think), the world is "going to hell in a hand cart." Or, at least that's what it seems like these days. While I usually try to keep a positive spin on life, because otherwise I'll fall flat on my face and die instantly, there are a few things that have just totally disheartened me lately and/or made my blood boil. In no particular order, they are:

1. I feel like since the moment I turned 18, everything I come in contact to in my life is "out to get me." Every decision about anything remotely important (or even non-important ones) have to be scrutinized with a microscope to make sure no body is trying to screw me over. Case in point: banking. From what I know of banking back in the day (at least, from what Mary Poppins taught be about banks back in the day), it used to be that you put your money in a bank because they were trustworthy, and you felt like they would be responsible with your money and keep it safe. Now days, it seems like you have to pick the bank that will screw you over the least, the one with the least amount of fine print or the least amount of hidden fees, etc. And it's not just banks. It's rental agreements, mortgages, utility bills, insurance or medical bills, and the list goes on. Just an observation.

2. If you haven't been keeping up with the news, Ohio is one of the states where there are big anti-labor union bills being pushed through the legislature, and there are subsequently massive amounts of protests going on every day at the state house here in C-bus. This bills, SB5, infuriates me more than I can even begin to explain. All the arguments for it are totally inane, and while it might end up helping the state's budget deficit in the long run, I don't understand why public workers, particularly those that work in education, are first on the chopping block? What happened to "I believe the children are the future?"

The big argument our governor is using in favor of SB5 is that public workers pay so much less for their benefits than private sector workers and that they get higher wages, too. So, SB5 is supposed to close that gap and make things more "fair." It's no secret that government jobs come with much better benefits that most private sector blue-collar jobs - that's why people take them in the first place. What I don't understand is why we're not trying to pass legislation that will bring the private sector jobs up to the level of the public sector jobs, instead of trying to pull a whole sector of workers down. I also don't understand why we're trying to cut benefits to education and to blue collar workers (those that belong to labor unions) to close the gap in our budget deficit, instead of tapping those who can actually afford it already. Why are we still giving tax breaks to rich people and huge corporations? Oh, yeah, because it supposedly "creates jobs and grows the economy." (Also, I hate that phrase "grow the economy.")

But, really, all of those arguments are moot anyway, because the real reason all of these states are trying to pass these anti-labor union bills are because the Koch brothers, and other Big Corporations like them, are pulling the strings in the GOP. (And that is my Glen Beck-like conspiracy theory rant for the day. Except my rant is founded on more factual things, like the Wisconson governors actual conversation with who he thought was a Koch brother. Ha.)

3. The "Heart Beat Bill". Some members of the Ohio legislature are currently trying to pass a bill that makes it illegal to get an abortion after the first detectable heart beat of the fetus. According to the bill, that is usually around the eighteenth day of pregnancy. Let me first of all state that I love babies, I'm not for abortion, but that I am pro-choice. How can that be, you say? It's easy. I don't think people should get abortions, but I do believe in a woman's right to exercise her own agency, but that she must accept the consequences that that will bring. The thing that I don't like about this particular bill is , that it totally ignores the precedent set by Roe v Wade. Hands down. Hasn't this issue already been decided? Like, back in 1973? If it passes, it will be the strictest abortion legislation in the entire nation. This is why this bill makes me upset. Not to mention my personal belief that this bill is setting women's rights back a billion years.

4.I was going to talk about what's going on in the middle east, but I'm exhausted and I think I need to calm down, so I'll just save that for another day.

5. If I have offended any of you, I'm sorry.

Okay, my rant is over. Done. I feel better now. I really didn't write all of that to convince any of you, dear readers, to think the way I do. I don't really care what your political views are, because they're your views. All I care is that you vote. Mostly, I just wrote it because now that I got it all out of my head, I feel better.

And, I'm off to bed. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

A Pictorial Update

Because I am lazy, and also because I have a load of pictures to share, here is a mostly pictorial account of the last several months. Enjoy!

In order, they are:

1. My first batch of cinnamon rolls I ever made!!! And they were seriously amazing. Mmmm.

2. We visited the Tanners over New Years! I'd never been to Louisville before, but it's a really cool city, and the Tanners are the best! Unfortunately I got super sick and we had to leave early, but it was great!

3. We finally got rid of my Little Red Car! So sad! We donated her to the Goodwill Auto Auction, so hopefully she'll go to a good cause. Sniff, sniff.

4. & 5. I made these bags! They were part of a service project another lady in my ward was doing and she needed help sewing! It was SUPER easy, and the bags are the perfect size and reversible! I'm going to make some just for me!

6. My sweet husband got me my favorite flowers today, just for the heck of it! That's right, he's the best. Be jealous, be very jealous.

Ok! And that brings us up to date! Hooray!

Icepocalypse Update

Isn't this storm crazy?! I've heard that 1/3 of the U.S. has been affected by this gigantic storm! Ridiculous!

Well, the ice came, and the freezing rain came, and then more of it, and more of it, and more of it came!

And on top of that, last night around 4:30pm, I started smelling gas. Again (this happened last winter too). And we called the gas company, they came out, and sure enough, our heater was leaking! So, they shut it off! In this winter storm! We called our landlord, and he sent the repair man right out (well, he didn't get there until about 8 or 9), which was crazy, because the roads were so bad and the ice was really coming down by then! So, I was really impressed that he came out in the storm anyway! He told us that he doesn't mind it, because he doesn't like leaving anyone with out heat! So nice! Also, his repair service is called "Alpha & Omega" Heating Repair and has a picture of the peace dove and a cross on it, so I'm thinking his religiosity might have something to do with how nice he was! But, even though he most obviously had God on his side, he didn't have the part he needed to fix the heater! He said he'd come back the next day, but you could tell he felt so bad that he was going to have to leave us without heat.

Luckily, we just bought a space heater last Saturday, so we knew we would be OK if our electricity stayed on. Things were pretty dicey last night, the power kept flickering, and we were seeing reports on the news that the power was out all over the city (over 50,000 people lost power in our county alone!). Even though our lights flickered a bunch, and at one point the power actually turned off and came back on really quickly, we never lost power all night long! Hurray for small (or large) miracles!

And on top of ALL OF THAT, our back kitchen door frame/kitchen roof & basement started leaking! This has never happened before in our house, even though we've had some pretty intense rain storms. We contacted our landlord, and he said it was probably just caused by ice that was forcing water to drain in ways it wouldn't normally drain (like ice covering a gutter or something), and to just keep it as sopped up as we could and that he'd just fix any problems the water caused. So, between some carefully placed buckets & towels, we kept the leaks at bay, and the only real damage was a little discoloration on the ceiling in the kitchen. The leaks stopped around 11 last night.

The weather warmed up a lot really early this morning, and melted some of the ice on the power lines and trees. There's still some ice on them, but not as much as last night. Ben was able to chip the ice off of his car a little easier today, and get to work. The main roads were just fine, and he waited until about 8:30 or 9 before going in, just to be on the safe side.

The heating guy came back this morning, and our heat is now on again and pumping, and no longer poisoning us! :)

Right now, we're starting to get some snow. It's really started coming down something fierce in the last hour or so, and we have a high wind advisory until 6pm tonight. I think we're supposed to have wind gusts between 30-60 mph. So, unless the high winds knock a branch down or a power line, we should be OK! I think we've ridden out the worst of this storm.

Keep your fingers crossed that the wind won't make us lose power! I just got a call from one of my visiting teachees (an older lady in a nursing home), and she said the power went out at their nursing home last night, and they brought them all extra blankets and told them to stay in bed! Crazy! She's OK, though, and the power is back on. Whew!

Hey, it could be worse. We could be in Chicago, where there are 16 inches of snow on the ground and rolling blackouts across the whole city. I'll count my blessings!

"Icepocalypse"

So, we're hunkering down here in good ole' O-H-I-O for a nasty ice storm. We got the first wave of it last night, starting around 8pm. It took my dear, sweet husband 30 minutes to chisel his car free of the ice enough to drive it to work this morning. So far the roads have been decent, but not great. Apparently the worst is supposed to come tonight. There's already about a quarter of an inch of ice over everything, including the power lines, so we're just kind of waiting around to see what will happen tonight.

Here is a picture of the power lines (sorry, kind of blurry, but you can still see the ice.




And Here is a picture of the ice all over our parking lot:



Columbus is notorious for bad power outages, so we're a little worried that we might lose power at some point. A couple of years ago when we got residual winds from Hurricane Ike, we went with our power for almost a week! A week, people! And that wasn't the worst of it, some parts of Columbus didn't have power for two weeks! Ridiculous. But, we've been pretty good about getting ready for disasters around here lately, so I feel pretty prepared. We've got enough food & water for awhile, we have ways to heat up water if we need to, our car has a full gas tank, and we've even got a plan & supplies to make little make-shift indoor heaters! So, now we just wait. Hopefully it won't be as bad as the news makes it out to be. (Almost nothing is as bad as the local news makes it out to be.)

In totally unrelated news, we went to Ikea for my birthday, and purchased this gem (microwave cart):


How did I ever go through life without this? Seriously, I have so much counter space now, I don't know what to do with it!

Anyway, stay warm, peeps. It's cold out there!

Pet Peeves

So, I'm trying to keep myself from being super anxious, while waiting for BYU to win this stupid basketball game against San Diego State, so I'll blog to keep myself distracted.

Some pet peeves as of late: (this is in no way shape or form any kind of "announcement", btw. We just happen to go to church with a bunch of people who are breeding like rabbits, so the topic is fresh in my mind)

1. I hate the word "prego" "preggers" or any version of that. Prego is a spaghetti sauce people, not a state of gestation. Also, I'm sure it actually means something in italian that has nothing to do with being pregnant.
   
2. I also can't stand the phrase "We're expecting." Expecting what? An alien? A knock at the door? A tax return? Seriously. You're having a baby.
   
3. The phrase "we're pregnant." No, she is pregnant, you both are going to be parents.

Hopefully I haven't mortally offended anyone who's used these terms or has had kids. I'm not bitter towards those who have children. I like children. I just don't personally want to ever say those terms. And no, don't give me any of that "well, when you have a baby you'll feel differently." I got so much of that before I became an adult "well, when you get older, you'll do/say/feel this way." And I also got it before I got married "well, when you get married, you'll do this, or you'll feel this." And I didn't.

Also, it totally looks like the Cougs are going to win this one! Take that! Woot!

Things are lookin' up.

So, the sleeping thing is starting to work better these past couple of weeks. Here's what's been happenin':

1. I started trying to set my clock back by 20 minute increments. I don't always keep to it, but I've been doing pretty good at working on this.
2. I think the thing that has helped the most, actually, is sitting in front of a light for about an hour in the mornings. I don't have one of those fancy happy lamps, so I've just been blaring my little desk lamp in my face in the mornings. I just have it on close to me, pointing towards my face while I read the scriptures in the morning, and it has totally helped me get back into the land of the living faster! I also think it is helping me sleep better at night!
3. While I'm still not getting sleepy as early as I'd like, I'm sleeping almost 100% more soundly! It used to take me forever to fall asleep, I'd wake up for every little noise, and it would take forever for me to fall back to sleep, if I could at all. Last week I probably had 4 days where I slept like a log! And this week I've had about 5 so far! AMAZING! I seriously can't remember the last time I've felt this rested!
   

So, that's the status of the sleep thing. I'm thinking that the lack of light in Ohio is the big culprit with my sleeping problems. Not only are the days shorter because it's winter, but in Ohio it is SUPER overcast all the time in the winter. I'm not just talking about lots of clouds here, people. I'm talking about concrete sky. The kind where you can't even see definition between clouds, where the whole sky is just one big gray slab for DAYS or MONTHS at a time. So, I think the extra "sun" light via my desk lamp in the mornings has been helping my body realize "oh, it's daytime! It's time to wake up!"

We'll see.

Resolution Update Numero Uno

So, after about a week of working on my resolutions, here's what I've worked on so far:

Reading:

• I checked out several books from the library that I've wanted to read about diabetes, including Think Like A Pancreas, Pumping Insulin, and 50 Secrets of the Longest Living People with Diabetes. (that last title features my former camp director! Woot!) After about 1.5 chapters through Think Like A Pancreas I'm wondering why the heck I didn't read this book years ago!
  

Exercise

• This one has been a little harder. See, I've been sick for a month, and this past week I got really sick, and ended up having to go to the doctor and get on antibiotics and all that (I'm feeling much better on day 4 out of 10 of antibiotics already!). I was having some serious issues with crap in my lungs rumbling around (not pneumonia, though, phew!) so we thought it would not be a good idea to try to go run around on a treadmill until I could actually breathe clearly. So, the gym had been pushed to the back burner until I started feeling better. But, we did go tonight, and I worked out hard, and felt really good afterward.

Sleeping

• I've been doing a little internet research about how to not be such an insomniac, and how to reset your sleep cycle, etc. I've decided to try a few things first, before enlisting more professional help. First of all, I am going to try to set my bed-time and wake-up time back in 20 minute increments every day, or every 2 days until it gets to be where I want it. During that time, I will absolutely not be taking any naps.
• I'm not awful at staying up super late or sleeping in super late, but I'm not particularly good at falling asleep or waking up. I'm often sleepy, but when I try to sleep, I just lay there for hours. So, I need to be better about getting up and getting out of bed if I've been there for more than 30 minutes and I'm not asleep yet.
• If I don't see much progress with setting things back by 20 minute increments, I'll try to use melatonin before I go to sleep. I've used it before, to no avail, but I think that I wasn't taking it early enough. I've been taking it about an hour before bed, but I read an article on NPR about insomnia, and the doctor they interviewed said you should take it 6-8 hours before you want to sleep! What?! Well, if it comes to that, I'll give it a shot.
  
• Also, in the mornings when I wake up, I am going to try to sit in front of bright lights for an hour. As I don't have a light box, I'm just hoping putting really bright lights all up in my grill will do the same sort of thing. Unless I can convince my sweet husband to try his skillz at making me one of these. Part of my crappy sleeping syndrome is the inability to get energized or have any kind of useful brain function for like 3 hours after I wake up (Maybe that's why I failed all my 8am stats classes!). I think a lot of this has to do with my diabetes dawn effect, so I'm hoping the light thing will help with this.
• Additionally, the "I'm useless in the morning" thing could be a number of actual medical things, like low thyroid, anemia, adrenal insufficiency or hormone imbalances (which would explain my crazy dawn effect too), so when I go to my first endocrinologist appointment at the end of February, I'll make sure to get labs done for all of that crud too.
  
• I WILL FIGURE THIS OUT!

Spiritual

• Still plowing through the Old Testament. I have been starting to read the Institute Old Testament Manual along with my reading, and it is very interesting to me!
  

Okay, foolios, that's the dealio for now. I'll keep you posted!

Not-so-resolved.

So, when I wrote the post about New Years resolutions, I toyed with the idea of adding "Dress My Age" to the list.

Don't get my wrong. I can dress my age. I know how to dress myself so that I look like I'm almost (gasp!) 29. I can wear nice jeans*, a fancy shirt, accessorize with those long sparkly necklaces that are all the rage these days, etc.

But here's the deal. My whole life I have always had issues with clothes that are uncomfortable. I think it's in my genetics, because I know certain cousins who have had this problem too (all the tags have to be cut off, and the socks have to feel just right, etc.) Any one who has ever lived with me can attest to the fact that I change my clothes like 6 times a day (no exaggeration), because after about three hours of wearing something, it starts to feel super uncomfortable. The exception to that, though, are t-shirts, hoodies, nice worn in jeans, and comfy pants. I could wear these clothes all day long, and I often do.

So, while I thought maybe I would try to turn over a new leaf this year, and start to impress people more or something, I then remembered how comfortable t-shirts and jeans were and said "screw it."

Sorry Clinton and Stacey. :) Maybe next year, when I'm 30.


*side note: It's time to get real about skinny jeans here, people. If you're over the age of 23, and still trying to pull off skinny jeans, everybody thinks that you are trying too hard. They just do. Also, they make everyone's butt look bigger, even if you are super skinny. Sorry peeps, it's a sad fact, but we all need to face reality on this one. Drop the skinny jeans, turn around, and just_walk_ away.

Uh oh.

I have been reading a lot about food storage and emergency preparedness planning, and I just have to say one thing:

This is SO not going to be good for my life goal to never be a hoarder.

Ahhhhhh! I will never be a hoarder. I will never be a hoarder. I will never be a hoarder.

Resolving.

So, I'm going to join the throngs of New Years Resolutioners, and throw in my two cents worth of things I want to do/get better at this year. I realize this list is lengthy and ambitious, but I figure, if I make my list long, then I'll at least do some of them, right?

1.Reading

• I want to read a better variety of books. I tend to get stuck with either one author, or in the same genre (usually mysteries or cook books, these days), and I miss out on a lot of other good stuff out there.
  
• I definitely want to read some diabetes books, specifically "Think Like a Pancreas" and "Pumping Insulin".Luckily, I just found out our library has these!
• If you have any must-read suggestions, send them my way!
  

2. Exercise

• Ben and I are embarking on a new experiment this year. We are going to try to go to the gym, in the mornings, before he goes to work! Yikes! As most of you know, I don't do mornings well, but we haven't been very good about working out at night lately, so we're going to try this and see what happens. The initial goal is M, W, F mornings, and Saturday whenever. Wish us luck!

3. Sleeping

• As many of you also know, I'm crap at sleeping. But, this year I want to try to figure out how to do that better. We're hoping the exercising in the morning will not only help with my crappy diabetes dawn effect, but will also help me be tired earlier at night.
  
• If I can't get this sleep thing figured out on my own with exercise, melatonin, or whatever, I am committed to seeing a sleep doctor. THIS HAS GOT TO END!

4. Emergency Preparedness

• I want to make and keep some serious 72 hour/evacuation kits handy. We have a few, but basically they are plastic bags with fruit snacks in them . . . not so helpful in a real emergency.
  
• I also want to figure out how to do a 3-months food storage supply thing. I have found this website http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/ , and I really like their check-lists, and am thinking about buying their binder thingy, but other than that I have no idea where to start, so if any of you out there in blogger-ville are pros at this, please lend me a hand.

5. Spiritual Goals

• I am a horrible member missionary. Talking to people about what I believe frightens me beyond all belief, but I am willing to start making baby steps into this area, so I will begin my making myself a profile at mormon.org. Baby steps, baby steps!
• I want to read more Ensign articles and conference talks. I will do this by reading one Ensign article a week, and making sure I have read all of last General Conference before the next General Conference begins.
• I am continuing the ultra lengthy Old Testament Challenge, which is not so much a challenge any more as it is an epic . . . .well, an epic something. I'm committed, though, and have been consistently reading daily, but I am SLOW!
  
• Temple, temple, temple!I have one so close! I want to go more!

6. Diabetes Goals

• I'm blogging all about these over at theinsulincrowd, so go check it out over there if you're so inclined.
  

And, that's the list! What are your resolutions for this year? Are they fun? Can I do them too?

Happy 2011, peeps.