Stress and dia-beet-us

I spent an hour and a half on the phone with various customer service agents at United today. They lost my reservations for our flight tomorrow and I was not hanging up until I had tickets to get on my plane to Utah tomorrow. In the end they worked it all out, which is good news for them because I had been writing and mentally rehearsing my hate speech to give to them during all of the time they put me on hold.

Here is a list of things I stress ate while pacing around nervously on the phone:
1. The muddy buddies that I was supposed to be saving for Cary.
2. An ice cream sandwich.
3. A sugar cookie.
4. Chocolate chips


I will send my medical bill directly to United when I'm diagnosed with diabetes.

A proper title escapes me.

Cary had to get his footprints taken the other day. I asked him why, and he said I didn't want to know. But I made him tell me anyway, and guess what! I did not want to know.

(In case you were clueless like me, they have to get their footprints taken because sometimes in a bad crash, all that's left for identification is what's in the boots...) 

One thing is for sure, for the next 10-20 years, my praying knees are going to be in excellent shape. 

On a lighter note, after today I only have 1 more semester of my college career! After this next semester I am going to watch trashy TV for a week straight without a single intelligent thought. And then I will probably have to take my college education and go get a job at McDonald's or something, because it turns out my degree is lacking in the marketable skills department. Live and learn. 


 

A photo essay.

Warning: This blog post is not likely to contain any real coherent thoughts.

Here is what Abby is like during the day. Taking naps all over and place and just sitting around looking cute:

Pet me! I'm cute!

  

 Here is what Abby looks like as soon as you put the leash on her and try to take her on a walk:

I am huge and strong and I am going to make you look like an idiot!

 

Let's not discuss how much time I wasted making these pictures. Let's instead discuss how much I hate writing American Heritage papers and how I only have 1 1/2 papers left but I can not for the life of me just crank them out. I blame it on the annoying beagle next door that barks its head off all stinkin day long. I want to go out there and punt it into the Rio Grande. I've never met my neighbors so I don't think they'll read this, but if they do, I'm sorry. And I hate your dog.

Anywho. Onto Devil Abby. I wrote a while ago about how she pulled me onto my face while we were on a walk a week or so ago but I thought I would document the damage.

Naturally I decided to snap this photo of my wounds

 as I was making sugar cookies

Boohoo

It hurt a lot more than it looks like in these pictures. I was so stinkin ticked at her.

Hey speaking of things that gave me the opportunity exercise my vocabulary of profanities, our bookcases are finally done! Even though some people around here threw several temper tantrums involving sitting on the grass and pouting (that Cary is just so dramatic...) they are done and I never want to hear the word "refinish" again. Now they actually have stuff on them, but you will just have to imagine it because taking another picture and loading it on here would require much more energy than I am willing to expend.

 Segue right into my next topic... A few weekends ago we went to San Antonio for the night! It was a delight. We went to buy Cary his Christmas present- a new suit. As I was purchasing said suit, the cashier was like, "Hey, this is a nice Christmas gift. It is for... your brother?" And I was like "Um, yes, I often buy my brothers fancy suits for Christmas??" Weirdo. I also got a new dress, and it was delightful being in civilization. Here is a blurry picture of us at the Alamo.

Hey, remember the time we went to the Alamo?

 We ate dinner at Saltgrass Steakhouse on the Riverwalk and it was amazing. It was all lit up for Christmas and people on the barges were singing Christmas carols. And I ate a ginormous steak and life was so good. We also got this amazing appetizer that involved steak, bacon, barbecue sauce, and onion straws. I wanted to take a picture of it, but by the time I remembered we were mostly done with it, and it was a gruesome scene to behold. But trust me, it was delicious.

Cary, always ready for his close up.

 And then I made Cary buy me a shirt that says "Don't Mess With Texas" and I am very excited about that. Saturday was Cary's squadron's Christmas party, and it was aight. There was a comedian there and he was mostly funny, but also pretty gross and raunchy. On the way out we were talking about how comedians are so much funnier when they don't have to rely on the shock value to get their laughs and how the way dirty jokes just make people feel kind of awkward... And the comedian was walking right in front of us. Oops! Oh well. Free Advice.

Please excuse the fact that I look like I may be with child. Only a food baby.

 For the sake of everyone involved, I am now going to end this post because it is weird and ramble-y.

Abby and I went running this afternoon. It was hot outside, and I was about 2/3 done with my run and pretty beat. I was halfway up a hill when I heard the start of Retreat. (For those who don't know, Retreat is when they take down the flag and play the National Anthem. You're supposed to stop what you're doing and stand still during the Anthem.) I really did not want to stop because I was almost done with my run and this was totally killing my momentum and motivation. But as I stood there, kind of annoyed, with my hand over my heart, listening to the Anthem, I was instantly humbled. As the Anthem played, I felt so much gratitude for the men and women who defend our country and the opportunity I have to know and support them. It occurred to me that I am really grateful for Retreat. It serves as a little reminder everyday of how I really do love and believe in America. It truly is worth fighting for.

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

John Stuart Mill

 Even though he'll never read this, 

I am so proud of you, Cary.

Signs that you will not be invited to be a member of MENSA

1. You lock yourself out of your house. Twice. In one day. (The first time, I had left a key with a neighbor while we were out of town during the weekend so I just went over and got it. The second time I had to call maintenance for them to let me in. They were not amused.)

2. While on the phone with your husband, you tell him that you have to go because you can't find your phone. D'oh.

3. You frequently leave your keys hanging from the lock in the front door.

4. You have to include "take a shower" on your daily to-do list or you might actually forget to do it.

5. While stopped at a gas station on a road trip, you panic after shutting the trunk with the car keys inside. You frantically run to the passenger door to tell your husband that the keys are locked in the trunk and are about to call AAA... when your husband pops the trunk from inside the car. 

... More to come, as I am a seasoned expert on being really dumb. 

Curious

Who do I know in Latvia who is reading my blog?? I am pretty certain that I could not point out Latvia on a map, but somebody over in Latvia loves my blog.

Addition.

Dog that is very excited to be going on a run + squirrel in the middle of the street = Face plant for Amy.

Ow.

I skinned my hands and knees pretty good, and dang! I forgot how much that hurts. 

And I ripped my favorite running pants.

Boohoo for me.

Grace is not my middle name.

It's Lynn, in case you were wondering.

But it is most definitely not grace. I am quite positive that anyone who knows me would never use "graceful" to describe me. I just might be the least graceful person on the earth. Sunday was a particularly grace-less day for me. First of all, I play piano for the little kiddos in church and during their lesson I was just sitting at the piano, perhaps I was sending a text message, I don't know, and I accidently dropped my phone on the keys. Twice. Okay, maybe 3 times. And then, I had to say the prayer during Sacrament meeting. For some bizarre reason, praying in public causes me to experience insane amounts of anxiety. I can sing in front of people, give talks, play piano, but for the life of me I can not say a regular prayer in front of an audience. My prayer sounded like I was a 7 year old child with a stutter and a learning disability. I could not remember what on earth normal people say when they are saying a prayer. I think my favorite part was when I stammered through, "And we're so gr-gr-ateful for for for... blessings." Good one, Ames. And as a cherry on top of my successful Sabbath, I dropped my hymnbook and planner on the floor which resulted in a loud clatter and all eyes on me. I know how to make a good impression on our new ward. They probably think Cary is some kind of saint for marrying someone as "special" as I am. When we got home I decided to make some tasty muffins for Cary while he took a nap so he could wake up to the delicious smell of cinnamon muffins wafting into the room. This might have worked if I hadn't caused all of our tupperware to cascade out of our cupboards and if I hadn't dropped the muffin tin about 50 times. And I burned my forearm on the top of our oven. 

It will be a miracle if I make it past age 35. 

But in other news, Cary and I are both terrible at surprises and secrets, so yesterday he spilled the beans on what my Christmas present is!

Yamaha Arius YDP161. 

My wonderful, incredible, amazing husband got me this beautiful digital piano for Christmas! With all of the moving we are going to be doing for the next big chunk of our lives, it didn't make sense to get an acoustic piano, but this baby is the next best thing! I am so excited. It is on its way to me now and should get here sometime this week! I've missed playing piano so much. My parents bought me a beautiful grand piano for my 18th birthday, but I can't have until I have a house it can actually fit in and that I'm not going to move out of for a good long time. So in 20 years I can finally have it back, but until then I am so excited to have this piano! It has graded weighted keys, has different setting of touch sensitivity and all these other fancy settings. It's just about as close to the real deal as you can get. I am so excited! And now I have even more ways to procrastinate studying. I love my hubs. I think I'll keep him around.

Pictures and some words

I am sick. I have been sick for a week. This is not ok. My immune system needs to get its rear in gear. Cary got the same thing I did and he's been better for like 3 days! What gives! It is this horrible cycle of staying up half the night coughing my lungs up and swallowing snot (you're welcome for that TMI) and then being so dang tired all day that all I want to do is lay on the couch and read Calvin and Hobbes while eating half of a box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch right out of the box. Today I decided that I needed to do something productive so I woke up, did the dishes, folded the laundry and fed the dog. It is now 7:47 in the morning and I want to go to bed. Boo.

But the good news is that my camera, camera charger, and the cord that connects it to the computer are all back together in one happy family. I knew they'd work it out. And now for some random pictures of some recent events.

 We decorated our tree right before we left for Thanksgiving break! It is beautiful and it makes me very happy. I was going to post the picture of both of us in front of the tree, me in my festive holiday attire, but we were both looking reeeeeally special and I don't want our friends back home to think we've gained a collective 500 lbs and suffered debilitating brain injuries.

Abby went swimming for the first time! It took her a while to figure out that she can, in fact, swim. It was hilarious watching her stand on the edge and whine and try to get in and then run back out. But she finally figured it out and was one happy dog. She was in heaven chasing chickens and goats and discovering horses. She is probably bored out of her mind now that we're back home, except for a little dose of excitement on Sunday. Remember the strange yellow thing she barfed up while we were driving? On Sunday she barfed up an entire toy, made of the same yellow stuff. We never gave her this toy. That means she has had this toy in her belly for weeks! It was disgusting. But she seems to be feeling much better and is wolfing down her food as we speak. Dogs are gross.

 Now here is a scary picture. I look like I am into my third trimester of pregnancy. I ate a big lunch, okay! And also, I am holding a gun! I shot a gun for my first time and it was super fun. It took about 5 minutes of coaching to get me to actually pull the trigger, but once I overcame my little fear of the recoil, it was sweet.

 We had the amazing experience of going through the temple with Cary's aunt and uncle and then watching them be sealed to their sweet kids. It was incredible and I am so glad we got to be there! The Dallas Temple is very interesting looking... But it was great to be there. We got there super early and went to go eat Chipotle while we were waiting, which was also a wonderful experience.

To close, here is a picture of a horse rolling around in the dirt. I had never seen such a thing. It was bizarre and I felt that I should share it with all of you. You're welcome.

Snickerdoodles that will make your husband love you and do the dishes.

Hello, lover. Also, sorry I am not a good photographer.

These snickerdoodles are so delicious. I made a gigantic batch and I was counting them to see how many I made and I couldn't figure out why I didn't have as many as it was supposed to make. My husband found them. In his belly. He ate 7 of them before they were even cool. And then he did all of the dishes and swept the floor. These cookies are magical. They are from allrecipes.com, which is one of my favorite recipe sites. I've found many a great recipe there, so y'all should definitely check it out if you haven't already. So if you've got a husband, make these and he will love you forever. And if you don't, make them and maybe they'll snag you one.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons white sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
2. Cream together butter, shortening, 1 1/2 cups sugar, the eggs and the vanilla. Blend in the flour, cream of tartar, soda and salt. Shape dough by rounded spoonfuls into balls.
3. Mix the 2 tablespoons sugar and the cinnamon. Roll balls of dough in mixture. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets.
4. Bake 8 to 10 minutes, or until set but not too hard. Remove immediately from baking sheets.

Trailer Trash

Greetings from our luxurious trailer in Glenrose, TX! Considering that our other option was to sleep in sleeping bags on the living room floor with Cary's little brothers, I am feeling very grateful for our temporary abode. We're staying at Cary's aunt and uncle's house for Thanksgiving and they were kind enough to set up their trailer for us. Actually, this trailer is pretty dang sweet. It's got a nice big bed, it has a working toilet and shower, nice and cool, and most importantly, there are no seven-year-olds sleeping on my face. It's parked underneath a big tree, and aside from the momentary terror that jolted me awake and caused me to hallucinate people with guns breaking into the trailer every time an acorn fell on the roof, I slept like a baby. 

In exciting Abby news, on the way up here she barfed up a giant chunk of yellow rubber, origins unknown. She didn't have any toys back there, and she'd been sleeping the whole time, and suddenly she yacked up this giant hunk of something, looked very pleased with herself, and zonked back out. Freaky animal. She is in heaven up here. Tons of room to run, and lots of wild cats that get in the trees and taunt her. And yesterday we discovered the joys of Abby chasing around a laser pointer. Hilarity. 

You know what my favorite part about blogging is? Not having to transition from topic to topic. I can just jump right on over to discussing Christmas. I made Cary decorate the tree with me on Friday and I donned my festive Christmas pajamas pants with accompanying grandma-sequined christmas sweater vest. I found my camera charger, and I have a photo, but the cord that plugs my camera into the computer apparently needed to take a break from being a part of my life. He'll come back... they always do... Anywho. I am trying very hard to get the Christmas ball rolling, but this is my first Christmas season that I have worn shorts for. It is still hot in Del Rio and that is messing with my Christmas state of mind. But the Christmas tunes are pumping, the tree is decorated and we have tickets to fly to Utah to ensure that I get my white Christmas.

I really like my life. I have an amazing family, I married into an amazing family, my husband is cute, even when he is snoring, and I am so incredibly blessed. I love Thanksgiving. I should hop on the bandwagon and make a list of all of things I'm grateful for, but this blog is already very lengthy and boring, so I'll save that one for another day this week.

I really don't have anything monumental to post about. As usual I woke up insanely early on a day that does not require doing so, and as usual my husband is happily comatose in our bed as I try to pass the time until he can wake up and entertain me. Maybe I'll just go stand over him and stare until he wakes up. 

Dog Ownership, Take 2

Sorry for the bad cell phone pics...

After the whole freaky and insanely hyper puppy incident, we decided to go with a more seasoned canine companion. Cue Abby. Abby is a 2-3 year old yellow lab and she is great. She loves to go on walks and chew her toys into tiny pieces. Her most impressive accomplishment yet is the complete destruction of a golf ball in 2 minutes. She is tons of fun and such a nice dog. When people come over, she gets all crazy and hyper, but you can usually find her sprawled out on the floor, snoozing away. We call her our interactive floor rug. We like her.

Snoozing on the way home from Colorado

But I do wish Abby would refrain from her nightly it's-3 a.m.-look-how-many-annoying-and-loud-noises-I-can-make session. She has all day to lick her paws, snort, sneeze, pant, roll around, and grunt, but she still decides that 3 a.m. is an excellent time to engage in all of these activities. We keep trying to get her to sleep in the living room, but instead she crumbles into a pathetic heap outside of our door and whines all night. Dogs. I like her anyway.

What is that? You'd like to hear another hilarious anecdote about Abby? If you insist. We hook up our computer to the TV to watch Netflix, and every time the cursor moves on the screen, Abby lunges at the TV and tries to eat it. When the cursor disappears, she goes to look for it behind the TV. We thought this was hilarious until we noticed all of the dog slobber and nose prints on our TV. Live and learn.

P.S. I still think it's funny.

We made Cafe Rio burritos and salads on Sunday when some friends came over for dinner. I made tons of it and we had lots of leftovers. That means we've been having Cafe Rio leftovers for the last 3 days which= all of my pants are very tight.

I like to think that I am not a horrible cook. I have a few tasty things I know how to make, and I am usually competent enough to read a recipe. But for the life of me, I can not nail chocolate chip cookies. This week I spent an embarrassingly long time scouring the internets for the perfect oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. Satisfied that I had found THE recipe, I set out to make them. And guess what. They are not that good. My cookies are always either super flat or super cakey, neither of which is desirable. It pains me to say this, but thus far my favorite chocolate cookie is the kind that come from refrigerated cookie dough. All I want in life is to be able to make a bomb diggity chocolate chip cookie. Is that too much to ask?

Keys to Successful Living

1. Never drink a 64 oz Diet Coke right before you begin the 4 hour stretch of your drive with no bathrooms and not even anywhere safe to pull off because you might end up needing to pee so bad that it physically hurts and you might even start crying which makes you and your husband laugh which makes you need to pee even more and your husband might have to coach you to stay on the road and not hyperventilate and you might have to waddle, not run, into the gas station to finally make to because if you run you will actually pee in your pants and the workers at the gas station just might laugh at you.

I'm just guessing that something like this could happen to someone, someday.

... Or not.

Milo went back to the Dumb Friend's League today. And I cried. I have only known the dog for a week, and I cried! He is just such a heart breaker. He is so sweet, and it killed me to have to give him back. But the fact of the matter is that he needs much more than I can give him right now. I am not a fan of dogs with any kind of aggression issues, and he was a pretty dominant little sucker, and had taken countless chomps at my hands, which is no bueno in my book. He also had this nasty little habit of peeing in the house just to tick me off, because he was fully potty trained. And then there was his little issue of humping everything in sight and going ballistic on me all of the time. But his precious puppy dog eyes and the way he melted when you stopped to rub his belly were just so darn endearing.  I took him to the Dumb Friend's League today and met with a behavior specialist to tell me more about the breed and give me some help training him, but we both kind of felt like he just wasn't the breed for me. She told me she'd make sure he found a home with everything he needs, and I cried as I left my little pooch in her hands. I know we'll both be happier and he'll find a great home, but that guy sure reeled me in for the week I had him. Cary and I aren't quite done looking for a dog, but I think we'll shoot for an older dog that is a little more user friendly.

Even though he drove me absolutely bonkers for the week he was here, I'll miss that little booger.

Meet Milo!

Milo is the newest member of the Reeves' family!

Here are some facts about him...

- We picked him out from the Dumb Friend's League in Colorado, and I was originally after a Lab, but this little guy stole my heart.

-He is 7 months old and a mixture of Australian Cattle Dog, Heller, Collie, and no one really knows what else. But he's very adorable!

- As soon as you start to pet him, he flops over onto his back and loves to have his belly scratched.

- He loves to eat everything, except his dog food. He much prefers to eat my mom's dog's dog food, which she does not appreciate.

- When we went to Petco, he picked out a bone that is bigger than his head and carried it around the whole store.

- So far his favorite hobby is to go up to my room and bring my shoes down and give them to me and/or eat them.

- He's adorable.

Inappropriate story

This story is rated PG-13.

You've been warned.

I don't really have a filter about what is appropriate to share and what is not, but I feel that laughing at embarrassing situations helps me to not bury myself in blankets and never come out. So please, laugh with (at) me. 

My mom has some very nice Hispanic women that come to clear her house every couple of weeks. They usually just clean the main level and upstairs, and don't clean the basement. This is an important part of the story, because my husband and I lived in the basement of my parent's house for a couple of months this summer. So, on one fateful afternoon, I was aware that the cleaners were at the house, but I had been told that they don't come into the basement. After various marital pursuits, such as balancing the checkbook and discussing retirement of course, I found myself sans ropa, ifyougetmydrift. It also happened to be laundry day. I went to go run into the laundry room, on the opposite side of the basement, to grab some clothes. Just as I was making my sprint past the stairs, who should open the door? Of course the cleaning ladies. She quickly put her head down and mumbled an apology in Spanish and slammed the door. And then I'm pretty sure she went to go soak her eyeballs in lysol to cleanse them from the image burned into her retinas. I'm pretty sure my cheeks stayed bright red for about a week. And I had to hide in the basement every time the cleaners came after that because I could not bear to see that poor woman again.

Fast forward 3 months... The cleaning ladies came yesterday. I opened the door and immediately locked eyes with the one who was involved in "the incident." I immediately turned scarlet once again and we both kind of looked down awkwardly and smiled nervously.

I feel like my list of people who have accidentally seen me all nakie is higher than normal. There is the time I was in a changing room in Kohl's and the dumb door flew open, the time I was playing the waves in the ocean and several crucial functions of my swimsuit were compromised, and various other wardrobe malfunctions. Nobody wins in these situations. I come away embarrassed and unable to make eye contact with anyone, and those exposed have to deal with permanent and irreversible damages to their psyche.

The moral of this story is, take caution next time you make a dash across the house in your birthday suit.

I can never think of good titles for my thoughts.

I lost my camera charger, dag nabit. I keep wanting to take pictures and post 'em on ye olde blog but I can't. 

One thing I wanted to take a picture of is the freaking tiny airplane that my husband will soon be navigating through the skies. That thing is so small. Here is a picture of it that I found on the internet:

I feel like I could just bat it out of the air! Cary is all kinds of excited and nervous to finally be flying. I have so much anxiety regarding this event. On the one hand, it is awesome and I am so excited for him. Pilots are hot. And on the other hand, I sometimes wish his childhood dream was to be an accountant or something. Hey, accountants are hot too. I find staying on the ground and not being shot at to be a total turn on. But I guess I will try to calm my anxiety and remember all of the positives of my husband being a pilot. Number one being that he looks smokin hot in a flight suit. I am so dang proud of that guy. Cary has been studying his little fanny off at IFS (Initial Flight Screening) but I lucked out and got to hang out with him on Friday. We spent the night in Pueblo and ate pizza in our bed at the hotel at 10:30 p.m. and it was awesome. Two thumbs way up for that. 

Life is amazing when you are married to your best friend. 

I've been struggling to find motivation for my independent study classes. Why won't someone pay me for the unique skills I've already cultivated? Where is the job market for making and eating dessert? There has to be some demand for those who can talk insanely fast and remember a lot of useless information. Did you know that elephants are the only animals with 4 knee joints? That's what I'm here for. And let's not forget about my real talent: knowing all of the words to songs. Somebody let me know if they hear the Lyrics Police are hiring, because I would be an indispensable asset to their team. 

But since nobody is taking advantage of all I have to offer, I find other ways to occupy my time and neglect my studies. Today my sista came over and my mom showed us how to make these adorable little halloween guys. Jars+ tissue paper+ glue= precious halloween decorations to stick lights in. I wish I had my house to decorate! I've always wanted to be crafty. I have these great ideas and pictures in my head, and then when I try to make it, I get frustrated at how slow it is and how uncoordinated I am. And the fact that my Frankenstein looks like a Lego person's head. You think you know what Frankenstein looks like, but when it comes to cutting it out of tissue paper, I was at a loss. But it was fun anyhow and they turned out pretty well if I do say so myself! Minus lego head. 

I would like to close by stating for the record that my fam and my husband are the bomb diggity. 

Am I the only one who...

... irons my skirt with my hair straightener when I'm too lazy to do the whole iron and ironing board thing?

... eats so much cookie dough while making cookies that I can not eat any of the actual finished product?

... only feels inspired to blog when I should be studying?

... forgets whether I am shampoo-ing or conditioner-ing while in the shower and has to start all over?

... gets excited about eating breakfast the next day while falling asleep at night?

... gets jealous of my dog whose entire life consists of eating and sleeping?

... wishes I had a kid when I walk by cool looking playgrounds so I could play on them without looking like a creepy pedophile?

... thinks America's Funniest Home Videos is still hilarious?

... secretly wishes it was socially appropriate to live at home until you are 50?

Please tell me it's not just me. 

I am losing my mind.

My subconscious freaks me out sometimes. Almost every night, I have extremely involved and usually fairly traumatic dreams. Last night may trump them all.

I dreamed that Cary was deployed (sad enough by itself). So while he was gone, I started feeling really sick, so I went to the doctor, where they informed me that I was like 5 months pregnant. Side note, no one should ever watch the show "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant" because I am pretty sure that watching that contributed to this dream. Side note to my side note, I don't believe that any of those girls didn't know they were pregnant. I think they were in denial. How in the world could you not know that there is a PERSON inside of you??? Anywho. So that was traumatic and I was all upset because the baby would be born while Cary was gone, I was in Texas by myself, etc. So then the doctor tells me that the baby is the least of my worries, because I also have extremely aggressive breast cancer, and I will most likely die before the baby is born. I called my deployed husband and he got together everyone we know in Texas (which consists of about 4 people) to come and help me and be with me, and I couldn't get a hold of anyone in my family and my husband couldn't come home to be with me. In my dream, we just spent hours on the phone, not saying anything, both of us just crying. It sounds ridiculous while I'm typing it, but it felt SO REAL. I honestly woke up sobbing!

Usually when I have these freaky dreams, I wake up and see my precious husband sleeping like a rock next to me and I cuddle up to him and try to focus my dreams on puppies and ice cream. But the hubs is gone so I just kept falling asleep and having that same dream over and over again! It was horrible. 

I need to lay off the drugs,  man. 

Also I would like my husband back. 

Things I am currently pondering.

Last night I dreamed that we were at the pet shelter, picking out our puppy, and instead I came home with a rooster. The rooster was not particularly friendly or cute so I'm really not sure what prompted this. All I know is that I do not want a rooster, I want a ball-chasing, foot-licking, tail-wagging puppy with floppy ears. 

I feel like I need to get something off of my chest. This has been a long time coming. I'm not sure if this is a confession or a proud announcement, but a few weekends ago, Cary and I ate a whole thing of bluebell ice cream in one weekend. One day it was all I ate. Why do I have the ability to do this? I wake up in the morning, and ice cream sounds like a perfectly reasonable breakfast option. I try very hard to suppress these desires, but sometimes I just want some ice cream for breakfast. 

The mail man is stealing our netflix. One time I opened the door right as he was delivering our mail, and I saw a netflix in the bunch and ours was supposed to arrive that day... but he did not give it to us. So I figured it must be a neighbor's. But our DVD never came! So we looked online and saw that it had already been sent back, and never made it to us. What the! I just know he is stealing it and watching it on a secret TV in his mail truck as he drives around. 

It is the morning and I haven't had breakfast yet. And I wish we had some ice cream.

The End.

I hate running.

My major is exercise and wellness. Given this fact, you would assume that I enjoy doing things such as exercising. Ha! I do exercise, and sure, I enjoy the benefits, like cardiovascular health, reduced stress, and not being obese. But the actual act of exercising is about as pleasant to me as cleaning out the toilet. It needs to be done, but if a system were available in order to stop doing it, I would be the first in line. 

I went for a run this morning. There are a number of things that I have to do in order to delude myself from reality enough to run a few miles. If my mind becomes too conscious of the fact that I am exerting myself, I am suddenly overwhelmed by the desire to sit down and wait for someone to take my deranged self back to the couch where it belongs.

My iPod needs to be pumping out tunes constantly. One time I was on a run, and I was 3 miles away from our house. My iPod died. So I called my Dad and he came to pick me up, because taking away my iPod is the equivalent of chopping off my foot. My iPod serves 2 purposes: 1. So I can't hear myself panting. If I can't hear it, it doesn't exist and I am much less aware of the agony I am currently experiencing. 2. Most of my songs on my running iPod are rap and pop songs with lyrics pertaining mostly to hot bodies. Somehow, listening to Fergie sing about her humps motivates me to get my booty in gear.

I also have to trick myself into thinking I haven't been running very long. I put my watch on upside down so that I can't just glance down at my watch and check how long the torture session has dragged on. Sometimes I play games with myself, seeing how long I can go without looking at my watch, and then trying to guess exactly how long I've been running.

When I'm running up hills, I look straight down at the concrete and try to guess where I will be when I look up again. 

I tell myself that if I were running a marathon, 6 miles would feel like nothing. 

I try to remember all of the names of my teachers from school, try to remember all of the dates my husband and I went on when we were dating, count the number of steps it takes to get to the end of a street, and a variety of other menial tasks to distract my poor brain from the reality of the situation. 

I wonder what motivates most people to run. Fitness? Hot body? The actual enjoyment of exerting yourself? Ha. I am motivated purely by guilt. When I see other people exercising, I just wish everyone would go home and be fat so that we could all be fat together and I would not have to sweat anymore.

It is 6:30 in the morning.

Every morning, our alarm goes off at 6:30 and I feel like I am coming out of a 5 year coma. I am quite confident that if that darn thing didn't go off, I could sleep for about 7 more hours.

And yet.

Almost every Saturday, 6:30 rolls around and my eyes pop open, ready to attack the day. I try very hard to convince my brain that sleeping is really what we want to be doing right now, but it does not listen. Every song in the world gets stuck in my head, everything is suddenly unbearably uncomfortable, and I have to go pee.

Why, oh why, must this be the case? 

That very thing occurred this morning and I did not want to suffer alone, so I spent the next half hour subtly trying to wake up Cary. I wanted to wake him up, but gently and slowly enough that he would think he woke up on his own. But after half an hour of poking and sighing very loudly and fidgeting in the bed very ceremoniously, the boy is still in there sawing logs. He may never wake up. 

I am also pretty scared of waking up Cary. He is not very sane when he is woken up. One time, when we were engaged, we were at my family's condo in Utah. Cary had fallen asleep while we were watching a movie. It was almost time to leave for my big family party that we have at Christmas. This was the first time Cary was meeting my extended family, and I was really excited about it. I went to wake him up, and he kept snapping at me to leave him alone and not touch him. I kept telling him we needed to go and he said he wasn't going, and he didn't care about a stupid party. I was freaking out, telling him how everyone was expecting to meet my fiance, and he needed to get his rear out of bed, but he just kept pushing me away and telling me he wasn't going. So I go to finish getting ready, on the verge of tears. A few minutes later, Cary saunters in, gives me a kiss on the cheek and starts putting his shoes on. I am so confused. I ask him where he's going, and he says, "Doesn't the party start in a few minutes? I woke up a minute ago and realized it was time to go. Why didn't you wake me up?" Of course I told him about how I nearly broke up with him for being such a jerk when I tried to wake him up, and he has zero recollection of the event. 

And that is why it is best to let sleeping dogs (and husbands) lie. So now I am blogging and watching things on Netflix. We became Netflix members yesterday and it is the best decision I've made in my entire life. 

Aside from marrying this guy:

Cary in his natural habitat.

Good news for our future children:

We were both really stinkin cute.

A collection of thoughts:

I have about 8 billion things I need to do today.  Between moving in/classes/internship/taking care of our ugly yard/etc, I am swamped. But I have a dang cold. And I am grumpy about it. So I instead I am looking at puppies that I want to adopt. Yesterday morning I sat outside, eating my breakfast, looking at our yard and picturing a puppy back there, chasing around a tennis ball. And then I decided that I should stop imagining pets and I went inside. The point is, I can not wait to get a dog! We're picking one out while we're in Colorado! I CAN'T WAIT. Cary will be one busy bee during pilot training, so I need a puppy to hang out with me, and to bark at bad guys when Cary is gone. In conclusion, here is a hilarious video of my puppy at home being very angry with a KNEX roller coaster. When Ryan sent me this video, I watched it 15 times in a row and laughed uncontrollably every time.

On an unrelated note, today I have been married for 4 months! It has gone a bizarre combination of fast and slow. On the one hand, it feels like we just got married yesterday, and then on the other hand it's like, haven't we always been married? As a seasoned expert on the matter, I feel that I can now fully endorse marriage. It is fantastic. My best friend is always around! My favorite times are when we're in bed trying to go to sleep but we keep talking about ridiculous things, telling each other that we REALLY need to go to sleep so we need to be quiet but then one of us will make a joke or something and we'll get all started again and then it's 2 in the morning and we have to wake up in 4 hours. Also, the other day I was doing dishes, singing some "Fever" and I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty lost in my own little world... dancing around, belting it out. And my mean ol' husband snuck into the kitchen and grabbed me and scared me and I screamed bloody murder and accidently hit him really hard. I was seriously terrified! He was too busy laughing his head off to complain about how hard I hit him, but now I am afraid of singing in the kitchen.

But hey, speaking of Wal-Mart, I hate that place. Every time we go there, I want to get my tubes tied. Wal-Mart is about the only place you can really get groceries or anything so we have gone there like every single day since we moved here and it always puts me in an awful mood. It is like 20 minutes away, and there are so many dang stop lights! Ugh! There is one particular experience that still raises my blood pressure just thinking about it. I went to get our oil changed, which sounds like a simple process. The woman informed that it would be about 30 minutes, so I decided to wander around the store. After navigating my way around a million screaming children and people walking very slowly and of course the high caliber individuals employed there, I managed to find a few things that we need and several impulse purchases. When you add in the amount of money you spend while waiting to get your oil changed, it can be a very expensive ordeal. So after 30 minutes I went to go pick up my car and when I asked if it was done they looked at me like I'd just asked them if my space shuttle was done with repairs. Anyway, 2 hours later my car is finally done and after much attitude from the people at the auto care place, I finally got my car and went home... Without the things I had just bought. And then I decided to get back in bed and never come back out.

Anywho, besides Wal-Mart being a constant source of strife, life continues to be great.