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.