Just a Pinch

I have a few fun things to share.

On a recent shopping trip to Meijer for a few essentials Kevin noticed a sign that looked something like this:
PLASTICHANGERS $2.99
He failed to notice the subtle difference in color and read it aloud: "Plast-y Changers?"
I laughed pretty hard.

That same day I learned that Kevin had named his intestines (both small and large) Mr. Powell. It was taking me a small while to figure that one out... so then he explained it to me. :)

This video has been a favorite occasional topic of conversation for me for a couple years now and I was so pleased to share it this morning with my stinkin' awesome coworker, Sarah. Please, enjoy.

Kevin and I just finished watching a This Old House project that we recorded. It was pretty neat to watch the evolution of the house and all the little projects that make up a renovation. Another thing that verifies that we're in our 60s.

Sometimes people you know need to get rid of furniture and you and your husband end up with a free couch! It's awesome and we love it (I think mostly because we didn't really have a couch before). We also love our popcorn popper! We used it for the first time since it was given to us as a wedding gift on a scheduled movie night last Saturday. It makes a delicious and cheap snack (essential for movie watching) which we enjoyed along with two excellent films: Heart and Souls and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

I learned to knit this week at camp! One of the campers was talking on Monday about how she knows how to knit and, of course, I was vocally envious. She decided then that she was going to bring in her supplies and give me lessons during me-time. The first day she just let me do a few rows on her project (a scarf). I ended up procuring some long forgotten needles from the AC office and the next day I was ready to learn how to cast on. Next I have to learn how to finish something up and then I'll be all ready to roll! :) Knitting is awesome.

Jungle Java does not suck. It doesn't quite make sense to me as an Around the World field trip but we all definitely had fun, which was great. A post coming sometime soon about how we turned A-2 into a giant recycling center: stay tuned!

Gander

I just loved this picture and wanted to share:

The Wedding and Married Life

I'm a bit overdue with this particular post.














Kevin and I got married about a week and a half ago! Wedding day was easily the best day of my life thus far and my happiness hasn't been much dimmed since then.

Everything went smoothly the whole day long. People showed up, we didn't goof our vows, flowers were present and beautiful, the food was great, the music was awesome (the dance floor was hoppin'), we got a bazillion compliments and well-wishes and gifts, and in the end: we were a married couple! We got to see and talk to people that we don't normally get to see and talk to and spend time with family that came into town the week before and just relax and enjoy ourselves. We recently got our photos back and are thrilled with them. The whole experience was just SO positive. I felt completely emotionally uplifted that day and since then too which really is awesome.

Married life since the wedding has been wonderful. Being able to spend time with Kevin and see him before I go to sleep and when I wake up has been excellent. We didn't live together before the wedding so getting to know each other that way is, right now, fun and enjoyable for me. He really is my best friend and I just could not be happier about our relationship and how things are going for us as a couple. Some of the cynical might say that we've only been married for a week and a half and that we should just wait until we've been together longer to find out just what married life is like. I honestly don't think that I will always be this happy with how things are in my life. But for now I'm blissfully contented and I plan to enjoy it to the fullest.

If any of you readers out there have any recipes that you would like to share with us we would be glad to have them. I know many of you have already contributed some but, of course, the more the merrier! :) Cooking has become our new best friend as we've been preparing breakfasts/lunches/dinners together and we would love to try new recipes out on our beautiful new pots/pans/etc.

The next project, which I've been putting off a little, is finding a job. Worse comes to worse we can still live here and be subs and/or find other part-time work... but I want (NEED) a classroom of my own! I'm excited to be a teacher and I'm really looking forward to being gainfully employed (for "grown-up" money).

Hooray for things going well and for me being happy!

Eyeballs

Is it common for people to feel nauseous with new contact lenses?

Health in General

After my trip to California and the acupuncture treatments I received while I was there I have been made to realize that my body is not in tip top shape. I honestly didn't think it was but I was afforded a clearer understanding of what things I've been dealing with and the picture seems pretty bleak right now. I had begun to feel better, physically, on my trip and since have returned to feeling mediocre at best.

I know that everyone feels sore and tired and grouchy now and then but those symptoms have been my daily norm for a couple years now. As I said in a previous post: "I have been gaining weight and having headaches and falling asleep on my date night for so long that I don't even really remember being relaxed and happy anymore." Granted that I wrote that post while feeling particularly upset and stressed out, but all of those things are absolutely true. I'm always tired: even after a full night's sleep I don't really feel rested. Quite often (like during the good ol' days of high school) I wake up with a headache that lasts all day until I go to bed. My poor little Kevin is quite sick of always being grouched at and I'm at least 30 pounds heavier than I was 3 years ago (which is A LOT).

While I was filling out the extensive paperwork that was needed for the acupuncturist, I was on the phone with Kevin and asked him if I was irritable (it was one of the symptoms I was supposed to rank for myself). There was a pause on the other end of the line. I assured Kevin that he could be honest without any penalty and he relunctantly agreed that yes, I could definitely be described as irritable. I'm sure that other people would also describe me as irritable as I've been hearing things that are said about me around work and such ("Alexa's scary," etc.).

Needless to say: that bothers me! I have absolutely no desire to be so entirely difficult to get along with that people would rather not bother speaking to me at all (which seems to be my current status in many relationships).

My acupuncturist attributed my irritability, weight gain, and fatigue to an imbalance with my thyroid. One of the questions he asked me during one of our sessions was whether or not I experienced any depression. I said no, thinking, of course, that I'm not someone that mopes about the house all day or has trouble getting out of bed in the morning. He expressed extreme surprise and explained that my blood tests would suggest otherwise.

Rethinking that question, however, I realize that I did not then have a very clear definition of what depression actually is. After talking with Kevin about it a little bit and looking up an actual definition, it seems that depression = feeling awful, which, of course, has been my recent experience (plus various other symptoms that I've also been dealing with).

I've run out of the bottle of iodine I got while I was in California (which is the stuff that is supposed to restore order to my thyroid) and like I said, have returned to feeling awful. Recent money issues have prevented my restocking the supplement cupboard but Kevin and I have decided that this needs to become a financial priority. I've run myself down pretty badly and I need to begin to rebuild. Here's hoping bringing balance into my body will help me be happier. I don't want to be irritable and uncomfortable in my own skin any longer!

Changes

The last time I blogged I said I would provide more updates later in the week.... That, obviously, did not happen. Those updates were to include details of a rather scary thing that happened the previous week while Kevin and I were purchasing new phones and combining our wireless plans. Being that this story is not going to be its own post as first intended and will instead only be a small piece of this, a longer post that has other things in it also, I'm not going to describe it in as much detail as I once would have.

Suffice it to say that I randomly fainted just as we were paying for our new phones. I got really hot all of a sudden and then kind of leaned into Kevin and ended up lying on the floor of the establishment. An ambulance was called and I ended up with my coat off, a bottle of water, a fan, and a chair to sit in while answering all kinds of questions. Firemen were the first responders to arrive and ask me the preliminary questions (do I have any health conditions, has this happened before, when was the last time I ate, etc.). They also asked if I could possibly be pregnant... to which I had to answer in the negative for a variety of reasons chief of which was that Aunt Flow had arrived that very same day (possibly contributing to the reasons for my faint in the first place). Anyway... the point of including this story in the blog was to inform everyone that a group of firemen now know that I'm not pregnant. (There ya go, Ash!) The whole experience resulted in a trip to the doctor complete with blood tests and a prescription for 12 weeks worth of vitamin D.

Other things have also been happening. Kevin and I finally got our acts together and found an apartment to lease for the next 6 months. The whole thing took one week to finalize and we're super thrilled. We're very happily installed at Providence at Harbour Club which was the cheapest place we could find. It's in Belleville which, so far, does not seem to suck as much as we thought it might. We're close enough to groceries, restaurants, post office and the po po's plus we have a lovely proximity to a large park with quite a bit of property and a view right onto the first hole of a golf course from our balcony. Speaking of which, we have a stinkin' huge balcony with two sliding glass doors (one to the livingroom and one to the bedroom) that will be perfect for hanging out on this summer and I know the Lu will love to be out there for some fresh air. As we were moving in we discovered some of our lovely neighbors: all older-ish people that were kind enough to offer to help us carry things in and smile and say hello. The whole experience of moving in was excellent. I'm so excited for our first place together... and I'm excited for Kevin to move in in May. The only fly in the oinment was that I had to leave like 3 days after we signed the lease so I didn't get to unpack everything and get everything organized for Kevin and Lucy to be there while I'm gone.

Which brings me to the fact that I'm currently in California visiting my sister, Faye. I will be here for a little over two weeks which will be a tremendous opportunity to exercise and relax plus my getting to visit Faye and David. While it is not exactly the best timing for my visit because we have the wedding fast approaching and many things to prepare and loose ends to tie up, I'm here and I intend to enjoy it (taking care of some wedding tasks long distance, of course).

Wedding plans are progressing. Kevin and I have decided on a cake, have had our first meeting with the Rev., have ordered the invitations, and had our first fittings for gown/tux. Everything's sneaking up so quickly... it's all very exciting.

Good things are happening and I'm happy. I'm hoping that returning to HCrizzle in two weeks will not sour my optimism about how things are going.

Good Grief

I skipped a whole month! Whoops...

Obviously a lot has happened since last I posted: I graduated, walked (with my parents and Kevin present), had a Merry Christmas with the fam, had a Happy (drunken) New Year in Chicago with Korpals and peeps, and a wonderful visit with those Norrises in South Kadota.

Life after school has been going well. I've enjoyed having some time to myself to do some reading, crocheting, crafting, wedding planning, movie watching, sleeping... you know: doing what I want to do. I've also been spending quite a bit of time with that Kevin of mine, which has also been nice. Seeing him not as often as I would have liked to during student teaching was a pain and so being able to spend some good quality time together has been lovely.

I was back to work at HCrizzle after we returned from our trip and have been working since then: subbing, aftercaring, and doing a bit of summer camp planning. I'm feeling optimistic and enthused for this upcoming session of summer camp! I'm hoping we will be working out many of the kinks from last year and the years before... we shall see how things go. I'm currently a bit miserable at Honey Creek and I would really like to have a good going away summer so I may remember it (and my coworkers) fondly.

So many phases of my life have finished with me walking away happy to leave and not caring about whether or not I see any of the people or places from that phase ever again (ex: high school, Gateway Chiropractic, EMU). Later on I have been sorry that I did not spend more time saying good-bye, cherishing the people/places while I had them, etc. I don't want Honey Creek to finish like high school did... and then with me later regretting how I left the situation. It will certainly be a challenge.

More interesting news to come in more posts this week... just you wait...