Seatbelts are my Favorite

It makes me wanna take a back road,

Makes me wanna take the long way home.

Put a little gravel in my travel,

Unwind, unravel all night long.

Makes me wanna grab my honey,

Tear down some two-lane country,

Who knows?

Get lost and

Get right with my soul.

Makes me wanna take--

Makes me wanna take a back road.

You can't tell how steep, bumpity and treacherous that actually is.....

but I was basically dying.

He's all chill, no big deal.

You cannot fathom my sadness.

The mud taunted my very soul!

Welcome to the land of Chubby Cheeks

and Paledom.

Alright so I almost DIED in the middle of that last picture there and I really wish I'd gotten a video of it because for a second there we were basically standing-sitting in the truck, we were tilted so far forward. Had to actually use the "oh-crap" bar. Got a good solid thunk on the hitch, too.

But hey, that was our Sunday :) How was yours?

Wedding Spattergroit

It's like my actual day is experiencing a sugar crash and I'm totally not ready for it. I was barreling through today like a freaking productive monster and all of a sudden there's nothing to do for a couple hours and I'm just stuck. Stuck and restless. And itching to see my honey. But that might just be from a bug bite.

TODAY

• Met with photographer
• Attended "mandatory" orientation for online psych101
• Took specified drugs
• Met with printer people for invitations
• Basically knocked the socks off this wedding planning business.

Although, the picture thing got a little more complicated than I would've liked. We're now kinda forced into doing bridals, which I...want? Yes, and no. Because now I'm all confused and flustered. Because the sun's annoying, trying to have our sealing at 11:15, do family pictures and wedding party pictures at the temple and then get to the reception later that evening was going to involve more driving than anybody ever wants to experience on any wedding day (whether it's your own or not). So that wouldn't work. And no beeping way am I getting up early enough to go do morning pictures at the temple. HAH! So we decided to do bridals February 27th, instead, so we can choose the time of day, get the right lighting, all that technical jazz. But now I gotta rethink all sorts of things and my brain's so scattered today it's proving ridiculously difficult to focus and start at any one specific point. 

And my typing is terrible right now. How frustrating. 

I don't think it helps that I hardly slept last night, ending up just laying in my bed from 6-8am and finally just getting up because I was bored of the ceiling. You can only stare at it for so long. Apparently 2 hours is my limit. 

One thing that's gonna be super nice (and I actually originally wanted in the first place) is we'll be able to get some prints from the bridal shoot and use them at the reception. Yay! But at the same time, now both he and I have to look like we're ready to get married almost two weeks in advance. I only worry about that because I haven't even given half a seconds thought as to what the heck he's gonna be wearing. And do I get him his ring before then, so he can wear it in that photoshoot?? And what in the world am I going to do with my own head? I just wasn't expecting to have these decisions thrown at me so soon. They were there in the back of my mind. But now my brain wants to scoot into 'panic mode' and freak out. Though there's no real reason to. There's still....[gulp] 5 weeks till then. 

HOLY PIGEON TOES.

I'm getting married exactly 7 weeks from today. Ack! That's less than 50 days!! 

Ohhhh, lordy I really need to get crackin' on organizing all the addresses. Maybe I'm not as on top of things as I was thinking.....

I'm just sooooo, so, so, so glad that at the end of all this I get to stay at home with my brand, spankin' new hubby and cook him dinners and clean our little baby apartment like a good little wifey. I really am having fun with all the planning, sitting on the couch with my mom at the end of the day and making a new list of all the things we still need to work out. The making decisions part of it is still a little weird to me and there's an element of anxiety to it all because....well, my opinions aren't exactly rock-solid so I worry they'll change at any moment and there's really not much time left for indecisiveness. But it truly is comforting that when March 11th comes and all is said and done I can just hug my husband and know we're sealed for eternity and everything is always going to work out because we love each other and that's what you do!

I just gotta figure out who I can ask to help me with my hair and makeup for the bridals cuz, well I'd kinda like to look nice for those. I dunno, it's whatever. 

WEDDINGS!! blealhgaltrlejgoiut. thlghlthplghlthp. Whew!

It's ok. 

You're allowed to love us.

I do, too.

No Can Has

There's this little thing called 'health'. At the moment (and the past four and a half weeks), it has done a splendid job of avoiding me. And while it is annoying, I'm not bedridden or stuck in a hospital and I have never been more grateful for that fact. Now would just not be the time, thanks but no thanks. Thank goodness for doctors, and medicine and priesthood and orange juice.

Back in the middle of december I started getting these headaches. That's one more thing I have to be extremely grateful for; throughout my life I've been blessed with scarcely few headaches. It just doesn't happen very often. Hallelujah. So it was weird when that area right behind my eyes would ache and I couldn't concentrate on anything for too long before my vision would go all skewonky and crosseyed and just totally unable to focus. It was strange that the blood roared through my brain like crashing waves through a small hole in the reef. I took some advil (by the forceful hand of my fiancee), drank some caffeine, tried your every average remedy for that terrible brain-clenching pain. But it wouldn't budge. Soon, right after Christmastime, I began to notice that every single time I swallowed, my ears would crackle and pop like I was suddenly on some long road trip that required changing elevation every five minutes (And unfortunately, I am truly not exaggerating....at all). I felt pressure on my sinuses. I hoped it would go away.
Alas, it did not.
I became lethargic; in energy and in personality. Sadly, my poor fiancee received the brunt of this particular side effect and it took quite a toll on his patience. I was stubborn and did not want to require someone else (i.e. my parents, or Mark) to spend oodles of money to get some silly advice from a silly doctor on some silly headache issue. I have a hard time giving my own health serious contemplation or credulity.
Eventually, I was sleeping worse than my usual tossing and turning and the dark circles under my eyes (often mistaken for good ol' whoppin' shiners) began to appear as if I'd gone in and had permanent makeup applied in a very inconvenient location. I basically looked like a dolled up zombie. I have never seen such a vibrant shade of bluish-purple adorning my undereyes. The headache was my constant companion. My ears popped at the slightest incline of my head, audible even to someone standing within talking distance.
I finally agreed to have Mark's dad take a look in my ears and try some home remedies. He used his nifty little ear scope thingy, noticed some white and black "fun stuff" in my ear canal and suggested we try warm tea tree oil.
So we did.
We also put hydrogen peroxide down my ears.
Have you ever done that?
IT TICKLES LIKE THE BLOODY DICKENS, I TELL YOU.
I realize I just had a terrible British potty mouth, but please pardon my french.
I had a real hard time laying still. It didn't hurt or anything, not during the treatment anyway. But it wasn't seeming to help any.
About January 10th, I finally alerted my parents to my predicament and my dad pulled out some old ear drops he'd kept in the medicine cabinet and I started putting those in every 4 hours. And whaddya know! It started to hurt less! I was taking benadryl at the same time and could definitely feel it when the drugs wore off. But I figured I was getting better if it was beginning to hurt less.
Turns out those eardrops? Not only are they an antibiotic but they're also a painkiller. WELL POOP. My life is now a lie. Totally not getting better.
After an exceedingly tearful, and yet remarkably healing (emotionally, that is), conversation with Mark I conceded to forego my inhibitions and see a doctor. And so! Today, my mom and I went to the "doc in a box" aka the minute clinic at CVS and he scolded me for a bit on putting hydrogen peroxide in my ears and alerted me to the fact that it's illegal to partake of someone else's prescription (which makes total sense now that I think about it....baha). He looked in my ears and without any hesitation proclaimed, "I can't treat you here." He diagnosed some sort of "fungal infection" which just sounds SUPER lovely, and referred us to a few different medical offices.
My mom ended up taking me to my grandmother's doctor (an old people doctor, I felt quite silly sitting in that lobby) and he caught onto the fact that the white "fun stuff" in my ears were actually just scars left from when I had tubes put in my ears as a baby. Oh, goody. So it's not an outer ear infection.
According to this doctor, I've got a case of "eustachian tube dysfunction" which makes me feel like he's calling me a less-than-satisfactory crustacean but apparently to fix that all I gotta do.....

....is take some steroids.
Um.
WOOHOO.
or actually I guess it's called Cortazon and Sudafed (they're drugs, screw spelling).
Anyway, if this doesn't fix it within a week I gotta go see a eyes/nose/throat specialist. STOKED.
[ahem-hem...sarcasm]

I'm just glad I'm not dying. Which is awesome. YAY FOR LIVING!!

To Be or Not To Be....

Appreciated.

Or "appreciation; recognition of the quality, value, significance, or magnitude of people and/or things," if you will.
Sometimes...you just want a little bit more of it. But isn't that quite a bit of a conundrum? You want to be appreciated for the things you do or say, the effort you put forth into some act of some sort. To be recognized for your doings. By whom, it matters not.

[ps, when I say 'you' I basically mean 'I'

I really have no insight on your own personal

status of 'appreciatedness']

Maybe it's your parents, your siblings, extended family, friends, old high school bullies or that one person who's opinion you can't shrug off as 'unimportant'. 

Maybe they asked you to do something for them; a favor, perhaps. And maybe it just so happens, that favor was particularly difficult for you to maneuver and work through. It took great love and respect and willpower. Is it terribly wrong to wish just a smidge of appreciation in return? I suppose. That makes your act of love, respect, willpower...suddenly about you. It's no longer what you did for that person, but what you did for them so they would esteem you higher. Were you even doing it for them in the first place? 

[I'm heating up some soup in a glass mug

in the microwave.

Our microwave looks like it came from 

Dr. Brown's own laboratory and currently

it is making some very peculiar noises.

....I'm hiding in the next room whilst it 

sings in ominous cacophony]

Or was it just your own buried machinations coming to life, hoping to build up some admirable quality of selflessness that doesn't truly exist? 

When and where does service become self-serving? Anytime and everywhere, I would guess. Tricky thing is, not thinking of yourself during the act. SO I guess I'm covered.....and just a little peeved for not even being thanked. <mumblegrumble>

There's something stupendously comforting in drinking hot soup/stew out of a mug. As well as exceedingly more convenient in situations that require hands (such as typing). 

Life is certainly a funny (as in odd, not comical) thing.

Also, in case you, my dear reader, are in search or need of a splendid "pick-me-up" I would suggest spending the evening in the company of gentlemen such as Misters Holmes and Watson as well as catching up with the ever elusive Sir Percy Blakeney, finishing off with a good bout with the piano (although curiously missing certain garments such as pants) and, aforementioned, delightful stew....as I have done. Does wonders for the spirit, I assure you.

:P

Filler Post of Filldom

Ohhh, my blogging. You have suffered greatly. Results of moving, wedding planning, work and a lack of internet access (due to moving). Awesome.
So uh, New Years was cool. Woot 2012. Bring on December 21st.
I really have nothing going on, or much to say. I just need to get back in the habit of telling everything to the internet.

DAY SIXTY THREE:

coming to a close :)