Where to begin...

School is dragging on and on like the thing that never ends. Maybe I'm being a little dramatic but that's really how it feels to me. Luckily it is punctuated by the occasional interesting or slightly fun activity that takes my mind off how much I hate it. A couple Saturdays ago, my science ed professor had us over to her house for...are you ready?? ...SUPER SCIENCE SATURDAY. Try saying that three times fast.

It was there that I did this:

THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is a ball python, and I am holding it. If you want to get technical, all those snakes were ball pythons, of different colorings. Our professor doesn't just have them for pets, she BREEDS them. How hardcore is that?

Well super science saturday did have a purpose besides having an excuse to take pictures with large snakes. We did some neat experiments and talked about teaching kids, and all that jazz that is actually relevant to my major. That was two weekends ago.

Last weekend was valentine's day...it was really boring. I painted my toenails for the occasion. Observe:


The highlight was Mitch setting up a little scavenger hunt for me, with yummy treats and a PILLOW PET at the end! haha he got me a CAT pillow pet for v-day! kind of perfect for me, actually.

Also did I mention it is the same coloring as Diego?? hahaha.

Anyway then we went out to eat at Denny's our classic. I make it sound like we really wanted to go to Denny's on our date night, but the truth of the matter is that we soon discovered (for the second year in a row) that trying to eat at any semi-decent restaurant in Provo is not realistic at all on V-day. Apparently no restaurants these days accept reservations...what the heck, right? And I worked til 7 so there was no hope of us camping outside Red Lobster's doors to save ourselves a spot in line. With all 2 million couples that there are in Provo, it was a pretty fruitless endeavor. So Denny's it was.

That was last weekend.

This weekend...
Long story short, I found out that my grandpa was in the hospital again. His kidneys had failed and it was looking pretty serious, like he may not make it. My dad even flew in from out of state to be here with the family at the hospital. Mitch, my brother and I all spent most of two days at the hospital as well. My grandpa was diagnosed with prostate cancer, along with a lot of other health issues, but the important thing is that after switching hospitals, doctors, medications, and after many many prayers, things are finally looking better. The cancer is treatable and they fixed his kidneys and he will be able to go home soon. It was a very busy and emotional weekend, but it has made me even more grateful for the knowledge that I have about where I come from, why I'm here, and where I'll go after this life. It is so comforting to have that knowledge during especially trying times with people you care about :)

senioritis times infinity

Currently I am weighing the pros and cons of not doing certain extremely stupid assignments that are due tomorrow.

Pros:
I keep my sanity.
I stick it to my idiot professor.
I wouldn't be missing out on any valuable learning.
I don't even know how to do the assignment since she doesn't explain anything...so it just makes sense not to do it if I'm just going to be making it up.

Cons:
I may or may not lose some points in the class...oh the horror.
I may get a guilt trip when I walk into class tomorrow and all my friends have sucked it up and done it.
My guilt will probably grow into a huge worry monster, which may obsessively consume my thoughts for the next few weeks about how the loss of points will affect my final grade.

Resolution?
Take 5 minutes and just do it quickly and crappily. It's going to suck, but half points are better than none.

Then I believe I will treat myself to a sweet treat (see below).

:D

Food for Thought...Literally.

Recently I subscribed to Savingdinner.com's emails, hearing that it was a helpful and yummy resource to go to for dinner ideas. So far it has been an interesting read, but no overwhelmingly good recipes or tips have stood out to me. Until today. This it the "tip of the day" that I got today:

Recent research shows what many of us knew all along: Our moods dictate what we eat. Here's a few examples. Do any of these sound familiar to you?

* If you crave tough foods, like meat, or hard and crunchy foods, you could be feeling angry.
* If you crave sugars, you could be feeling depressed.
* If you crave soft and sweet foods, like ice cream, you could be feeling anxious.
* If you crave salty foods, you could be stressed.
* If you crave bulky, fill-you-up foods, like crackers and pasta, you could be feeling lonely
* If you crave anything and everything, you could be feeling jealous.

Not everyone will be the same, but recognizing your emotional eating triggers can help you make healthy choices when emotions seem to be ruling you.

I don't know how much stock I put by this...but judging by my moods and cravings the past few weeks, I'd say it's spot on. My classes this semester are giving me so much anxiety! All I have wanted to eat for the past few days is this:

doughnuts...mm. I feel like I would enjoy them that much more if they were beautiful colors.


oh my...bread pudding. specifically, the delectable bread pudding with caramel sauce that Matt and Cristy made for Christmas dinner last month...


and oh my word, the love potion. A frappe made with cocoa beans instead of coffee beans, and strawberry syrup and whipped cream. I am drooling.


I have senioritis so bad. Like, I had it BAD in high school and I think it might be worse now. I am so stressed with some of my classes that I just give up and don't do my homework most nights, because I can't bring myself to. It doesn't help that most of my professors are extremely disorganized and in three of my classes, I never know what is due at any given time. I'm sure everyone has these problems, I'm not special. There are tons of crappy professors out there who get tenure, though it still boggles my mind how they manage to do so. But the fact that I am not the only one with these struggles makes me even more determined to do something about it. Just what...I am not sure yet. If nothing else, they have a scathing end of semester review from me to look forward to :D

Expect the Unexpected

Like the title of this post suggests, the last couple weeks for us have been full of a pretty large unexpected event.

MLK morning, the one morning we got to sleep in, Mitch woke up at 5 am complaining of severe sharp pain in his neck. The pain persisted for a couple days, to the point where he couldn't move it at all and couldn't sit up for more than a couple of minutes and had to lay down all day. We finally decided it needed to be looked at, since it was keeping him from going to school, driving, and working.

After a short fiasco where I accidentally made an appointment at a different chiropractor's office than I had planned, we got him looked at. It was basically a blessing in disguise that I accidentally scheduled him at this other place, because they are one of the 10 offices in the US with the technology and equipment necessary to help Mitch. Turns out his bike accident on his mish a couple years ago messed up his back pretty badly, which has inevitably led to problems in the rest of his spine and neck. At the time he had it looked at, the doctor said there wasn't much they could do to help him besides surgery, which would have been very painful, expensive, with a long recovery ahead...which is why he didn't do it. Now, two years later, the doctors immediately diagnosed the problem with x-rays (where we saw his spine is curved off to the left...it looks so bad) and have got him started on physical therapy on these rare enormous back therapy machines.

The office is even nice, to boot. They have a poor college student rate...have you ever even heard of that? We are so grateful for their generosity in helping Mitch. Your back is kind of important, and it would have been tragic if we had identified the problem and solution, and then couldn't afford to get him help, which could have resulted in even worse problems later down the road.

Did we see this coming? No. But we are sure glad it happened now, with everything that has just fallen into place at the right time :)

Exciting Purchases of January

Purchase #1

The Planet Earth series by BBC. I have wanted an excuse to buy this for FOREVER. and finally my elementary science class has given me that excuse, since I can watch it for one of my assignments. It is in the mail as we speak, and I am practically peeing my pants because I want it to get here SO bad so I can start watching it. I'm nerdy like that.

Purchase #2


Or should I say...purchases. The Provo Library hosted a used book sale today, which I was super excited to hear about because I'm going to be teaching soon and I don't want to donate all of my nice personal books to my class library. This was the perfect opportunity to stock up, so I went crazy and probably bought wayyy more books than I should have. THREE huge stacks, to be exact, and somehow the fact that I couldn't even carry all of them to the checkout line didn't stop me. Luckily they had bags up at the register so I was able to drag them out to my car. I got 53 books for only $26.50. Some favorites include, The BFG, a collection of poems by Jack Prelutsky, Harry Potter #6, The Eragon series, a bunch of those DK Publishing nonfiction books with the awesome pictures, Magic Tree House series, and The Lost Years of Merlin series. Is that not amazing?

Purchase #3 The other day on Amazon I ordered a bunch of hermit crab equipment...why you ask? For my elementary science class, not only do I get to watch Planet Earth for homework, but I have to raise an invertebrate and take observations of it. This is supposed to help us refine our observation skills that we will be teaching our students, and it will give us practice at having a type of class pet. Also it was to help us get over the "heebie jeebies" as our teacher called them, of critters that children may bring into the classroom, like bugs, creepy crawly things, etc. Unfortunately, the only interesting invertebrates that worked for this project includeded mealworms (no), crickets (disgusting), millipedes (creepy), and hissing cockroaches (heck no). Since technically hermit crabs are invertebrates, my group asked if we could do those instead. I can't wait for the little cage to get here so we can go purchase our hermit crabs!

And last but certainly not least, purchase #4


Now, I do love my kittens but I do not love cleaning up their poop. And I realize the name "Citikitty" is totally gay, plus the concept is a little strange, but hear me out. It started as a joke, when someone showed us a youtube video of a cat pooping in a toilet. We laughed. Then we realized that there are a plethora of videos of toilet-trained cats on youtube. We wondered, do people seriously do this? We laughed, and then reconsidered. Why wouldn't you want a toilet trained cat? Then we went on amazon and did some research. Apparently hundreds of people have done it, and love it. And really, what's not to love? Ok, cats look really weird squatting over the toilet, but who cares? As long as I don't have to scoop their poop every day I am happy. Plus, litter is expensive. We did the math, and we can save hundreds of dollars a year with potty-trained cats! Plus, it is just so convenient.

So I am ecstatic to say that we started the kittens on this a few days ago. They are already ahead of schedule, with the first hole punched out on the training seat. Basically the concept is that you have this mini litter pan that sits on the toilet. As they become more comfortable, you punch larger and larger holes in it until, voila! No more litter and they are pooping straight in the toilet. How convenient.

Sometimes I amaze myself at the extremely bizarre things that excite me.

I have issues.

Wow. So the past few weeks have been a whirlwind. Every day I come home from school and still somehow manage to convince myself that it is still Christmas break. Luckily, I haven't been swamped with too many assignments yet, so I am still barely making it. Before long though, I'm going to be wondering what hit me when I come to a week when I have 5 projects all due at the same time. I have been trying to manage my time, but it is difficult when there are so many things to do...clean the apartment, cook dinner, shower (yes sometimes I do have to work up a lot of energy to do that one)...and there are so many things I'd rather be doing...eating, scrapbooking, reading, watching tv, sleeping...

Which brings me to issue #1. For the past, oh I don't know, few months, I have been extremely tired. So tired that it is very hard for me to do anything really. I come home exhausted from 2 hours of school and walking up the stairs...pathetic. When I step through that door, I lose all motivation to do anything, let my apartment accumulate another layer of dust, and pass out while my husband makes himself ramen for dinner. It got to the point where people kept asking me if I was ok, since I was basically a zombie anytime I was away from home.

Well, come to find out, after many blood tests and mental evaluations (don't worry I'm not clinically depressed), I have a moderate vitamin D deficiency. I didn't even know what vitamin D did until I was told I was deficient in it, but apparently it affects your absorption of all other nutrients. I was eating well, but none of it was getting absorbed, hence the extreme fatigue. I have been unintentionally depriving my body of nutrients for the past few months...no big deal. So now I take 5x the usual daily dose for the next few months, and I should be back to normal, eventually.

In other news...issue #2 is a bit embarrassing. But the last day before school started up, I decided to have one last proactive day before the surge of homework hit, and do some home improvement. I went to the store and bought an unfinished wooden shelf/hanger thing for our coats. We have tons of winter crap that ends up on the floor every day when we come home and shed our 27 layers, and I figured this would help a lot with the clutter if we had someplace to hang it all up. Well I bought some paint, and with Mitch's help, spray painted the thing black. Of course, we couldn't do it inside, so we went outside (where it was 10 degrees).

I was in the middle of one of my turns with the paint, when Mitch pointed out that I was holding the can of paint upside down, and compressed air was leaking out of it. Almost immediately, my fingers started hurting that numb kind of hurt when you are really cold. I ran inside to run them until cool water (I couldn't handle room temperature), and they felt like they were on fire. Long story short, I developed some kind of weird red blister/callous on the tip of one of my fingers, and also lost feeling in that tip. Another trip to the doctor revealed that I had chemically burned/froze it, and done some tissue damage to it. She said it should heal itself in the next few months. Lovely.

Like I said, I have issues.

Oh yes, it's nicer to lie in bed.

"Oh it's nice to get up in the morning, when the sun begins to shine
At 4 or 5 or 6 o'clock in the good old summertime.
But when the snow is snowin'
And it's murky overhead,
Oh it's nice to get up in the morning...
But it's nicer to lie in bed."

The credit for this song goes to my Grandpa Sam, who loves to sing it at a big brawling volume not only on winter mornings to wake us up, but also the summertime mornings. It is, and probably always will be the most accurate (and catchy) rendition of my feelings about waking up in the winter time (although I admit I have NEVER understood why anyone would want to get up at 4 or 5 in the morning, even in the summer). This winter break was no different...I did a LOT of lying in bed. I did, however, have my (few) productive moments.

Here is a comprehensive list of my achievements from my oh-so-lazy vacation:
-I finished my student teaching application- hooray!
-We sold our CRT TV! Finally.
-I worked 3 hours...haa
-We did our own little home improvement project, where we bought and repainted a coat rack for our wall.
-I delved into our box of wedding cards and mementos and started (and have almost finished) scrapbooking most of the stuff from our wedding!
-I bit the bullet and finished our wedding thank yous. 6 months later, ladies and gentlemen, but they are DONE. Halle-freaking-lujah.

In case your wedding thank you got lost in the mail, this is what they looked like, minus the nice personalized message on the back.

I was proud of them- they were relatively easy, cute, and soo cheap.
Hint for future newlyweds: Go the postcard thank you route- postcard stamps are 50% cheaper than regular stamps, there's no envelopes to buy or stuff, and there's just enough room to write a short personalized message on the back, without feeling like you have to write a novel to someone you barely know. It's about as easy as they get.

Some other highlights from the break were:
-going to the Utah Grizzlies game with family, and not dying on the way there and back. (Of course there was a huge blizzard the one night we had to drive to Salt Lake.)
-visiting family in Kaysville
-accidentally locking ourselves out of our apartment (there's a first for everything...)
-having a game night with some friends (we haven't totally dropped off the face of the earth...yet)
- staying in on New Years and pigging out on snacks and watching the Provo fireworks (front row seats from the comfort of our living room!)

All in all, a very nice and lazy stay-cation.

.