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.