4 June 2005, Saturday

The first week of summer is over. I don't know how relaxing it was either. I did a lot of stuff. Next week - I'm doing nothing. I might even pretend I'm on exotic vacation or something. For some reason the tendonitis I had in my feet during my mission has come back the last two weeks or so and my right foot is really bothering me. It put me in the mission home for two months last time. This time I'm hoping that if I take it easy, it won't get that bad.

I haven't killed my tomatoes yet. So that's good. The flowers are blooming, and my herbs are doing well too. I'm going to have to cook something so I can use them. I had to go buy a 25 pound bag of bird seed because the birds had eaten the small bag I bought first. I love hearing the birds outside my window. Because of the way my apartment and windows are set up, I can't always see the birds. But I can hear them out there being happy. I haven't counted yet, but I'm sure there have been more than 12 out there at once. I like it.

5 June 2005, Sunday

I'm watching tv, actually the Children's Miracle Network telethon. The local hospital for where I am is Primary Children's Medical Center. I had my tonsils out there when I was in kindergarten. That was great fun because I got to eat ice cream for a week. I called earlier in the afternoon and made a donation because I remembered that and because I believe, like my mom, that every pediatric oncologist should be unemployed.

But just now they showed a family who was in the hospital recently. During Christmas vacation, this family had been in a serious car accident, three of their five children were injured, two of them life flighted to the hospital, and the daughter was just released less than a month ago. I wish I had the money to call again, because I taught three of those five kids. The daughter was one of my sixth graders two years ago. A son who wasn't injured was one of my fifth graders this last year. And the son who was injured, but not seriously, was in second grade this last year. I remember him just zooming around the halls in his wheel chair. And the mom was very active in our PTA and helped out so much even with everything going on in her life. I wish I could help more families like them, and I hope none of my other kids have to be in the hospital for anything that serious.

8 June 2005, Wednesday

It's so sad when you go to a book store to buy some books, and they don't have any of the books you are looking for. That just befuddles my mind. So I ordered two of the three on-line. I'll see if I can get the third from the library. I ordered Among the Enemy and a GRE study book. I'll check out the new Charlie Bone book from the library and buy it later.

I think the birds have figured out where the bird seed is coming from. Every so often they bump against my kitchen window, not hard enough to hurt them though. I think they are just sitting on the little hose that goes into my swamp cooler, and when they take off they brush the window. But it is almost like they are telling me to bring more seed out.

This morning was so cold. I stayed snuggled in my bed for a long time. It's mornings like these I am very glad I don't have to get up early and go to work. It was so cold, my thermostat tried to turn on the heater. The only problem is that the heater was turned off a few weeks ago. So we were told to turn the thermostat down so the heater wouldn't go on. I turned mine down to 65, but that wasn't enough today. It was the perfect day to take a long warm bath.

12 June 2005, Sunday

I worked real hard on my quilt Sunday through Tuesday. I finished binding one edge and did probably 30 inches worth of quilting the blue border. But then I had to stop working on it for a while because moving my arm above and below the frame that much was really taking a toll on my shoulder. Sometimes my body can be so frustrating. So I took the rest of the week off. This week I'm going to try quilting one day and resting the next and see how far I can get. I need to get this thing done and on my bed. I found out my parents are coming to visit the end of the month, and I'd like to at least have curtains in my bedroom by then.

Since I couldn't work on my quilt all the time, I pulled out my mission scrap book and did some work on that project. I'd been stuck half way through my first area for a very long time, and that only put me two and a half months into my mission, there was still a lot left to do. So now I've finished not only my first area, but my second as well. It is good to see pages getting done and then flipping though them. I've noticed a few typos on some of the pages though, I'm still deciding if I want to leave them, or redo the pages so I can fix them. Looking at the pictures is probably what's contributing to weird dreams where I'm back in Brasil though.

I bought a plane ticket to go see my family in July when Ryan gets back from his trip. Since I can't leave for too long this summer, I'm going to be flying this year. That way I can spend most of the week I'll be gone with family. I really hate flying though. It's not because I'm afraid to fly, it's because I hate air ports and the hurry up and wait and the tight schedules and lugging my bags all over. My bags aren't even that heavy, but I had trouble just carrying my scripture bag when my mom and I went to General Conference. My shoulders can't carry any weight for any length of time, so walking from one terminal to the next - agony. I have a neck pillow now though, and I reserved window seats for myself (that's just so neat), so maybe while I'm on the planes I can relax my neck a bit.

But with Ryan coming back, I need to get working on his quilts. He left me a suitcase full of t-shirts he got throughout college for me to make into at least one quilt for him while he is gone. I haven't started yet. I know I'll need to buy a whole lot of stabilizer to keep the shirts from stretching all over the place. His quilts are either going to be machine quilted or tied though, I haven't decided which yet.

My insurance guy must think I write a lot of letters because he keeps sending me address labels. I haven't used all the ones he sent me last time, but I got more in the mail yesterday. I wonder how many letters the average person writes a month now that a lot of correspondence is done through e-mail.

Note to self: Buy a space heater in the fall when stores have them again. It has been so cold this week. I wrapped a blanket around my hermit crab tank today because I felt so sorry for them being so cold. I'm walking around in a sweat shirt and fleece or flannel pants all the time, it's so cold in my apartment. And I've put a lot of extra blankets on my bed too. It should be hot enough to go swimming again by the end of the week though. In the mean time, I'm enjoying the weight of the blankets on my bed.

13 June 2005, Monday

Here's another note to self: get a copy of any and all medical reports, not just the friendly note from the doctor, but the actual report.

I went to my general practice doctor today to get a referral for a different doctor than the neurologist I went to at the end of last year, beginning of this year. Interestingly enough, she hadn't sent him copies of my exam reports yet, and it has been seven months. I told him what I knew, and we decided to try a pain specialist as an alternative to surgery. Hopefully this means they will take care of the pain with injections if necessary, but also help rehabilitate my neck and shoulders and strengthen them so they don’t hurt any more. That will be good. But they needed the neurologist reports to send to the new doctor. They called and had them faxed over, but then their fax machine wouldn’t work to send them on, so they asked me to come pick them up and take them with me next week.

This is what I learned. I have two slightly dehydrated bulging disks, but my nerves there are still fine. One disk is normal. A slight disc herniation that is causing slight compression on my spinal cord. And another disc that is sticking out slightly but not compromising the nerves. Apparently only the herniated disc is any real cause for concern, but how in the world did I do the rest of it too? There is also something abnormal about my right wrist, a delay in nerve signals. The MRI of the wrist showed what could be inflammation, trauma, scarring, or something else, the report can’t determine what it is. I’d originally been told that my wrist was normal just as they thought it would be, but these reports show they didn’t think it was normal and that it really isn’t either.

So let that be a lesson to you all. Get and read your own reports, not just the summary the doctor puts in layman’s terms.

14 June 2005, Tuesday

Happy Flag Day

17 June 2005, Friday

I love my apartment. I decorated it. I put it together. I own everything in it. I take care of it. It is my home, my domain, my castle. I feel completely comfortable inside my apartment, completely at ease. I enjoy welcoming people into my apartment, but I am careful about what does come in. During college I lived in many different apartments with many different people. Each apartment had a different feel to it. There were some apartments I loved being in, and there were others that helped me get good grades because I spent all my time at the library so I wouldn't have to go home. When I got my very own place, I knew what I wanted and I've worked to make it the place it is. Of course it is still a work in progress. I finally did the measurements for my bedroom curtains and I need about 2.5 more yards of material for the valiance. And I'm starting to think my quilt will never be finished because I can't work on it as often as I'd like. But it is decorated enough you can tell someone lives here.

Wednesday night I hosted a book discussion at my apartment about the book The Giver by Lois Lowry. The discussion was a good one, but the part that I enjoyed was when one of the people arrived. As she sat down, she said she always felt comfortable in my home. It was the best compliment she could've given me. She referred to it as a home and not an apartment, and she said she was comfortable. That's all I want.

I've been chatting with Ryan at night. Of course it is 2am for me, and 1:30pm for him. I guess there is always someone in my family awake in the world. He told me he wants his quilts machine quilted instead of tied so the ties don't go up his nose when he sleeps. I have all his shirts on my floor right now. I have 3 Rice shirts, 9 Jones shirts, 3 band shirts, 10 sports shirts, and 7 shirts I don't know what category to put in, 32 shirts in all. There might be three quilts instead of the two I had been thinking, especially at the size he wants. I'll have to figure out how I'm going to do this. I'm also going to have to have to conquer my fear of not having enough t-shirts a bit so I can cut his shirts up.

Oh, and my tomato plants are still growing well. I put cages on them this afternoon, they are so big the wind was blowing them around a bit. I love the smell of tomato plants and how the smell stays on your hands.

19 June 2005, Sunday

Happy Father's Day!
I have the best dad in the world.

21 June 2005, Tuesday

I finally found a doctor I can trust and one I like who I believe will help me with my neck and shoulder. Why do I trust him you might ask? I trust him because he looked at all the tests I've already had done, he talked to me about what hurts and how it hurts and when it hurts, and then he looked at me and said he has no idea what might be causing it. That might seem like a strange reason to most, but I'm real glad that he's not jumping to conclusions and that he doesn't trust the first test results that came back. I'm also glad he's listening to me. He wants to do another test now to check something else. He wants to see if it isn't nervous but rather mechanical, meaning the joints in my spine aren't working the way they are supposed to, kind of like arthritis. And that's a bad explanation of what it probably really is, but it's how my mind is wrapping around it. We are doing the first part of the test on Monday.

This afternoon I bought some material to make cushions for my rocking chair that are going to look great with the rest of the decorations in my bedroom, and I decided how I'm going to do my curtains. So I'm going to do one of those two projects tonight. Tomorrow I'm going to tackle my fridge. I hope something in there doesn't eat me.

28 June 2005, Tuesday

Sometimes I just stop and wonder how I got so lucky that I have a job where I have two and a half months each year where I can stay up till 4 am reading a book and then sleep in till after noon if I want. I really am very lucky with my life.

Last Wednesday I saw the first blossom on my tomato plants. So far they are growing well. I'm so proud of them. I really hope I can get a few tomatoes off them this year. Next year I'm going to try growing a few other plants as well. I’m not having that much luck with the herbs though. My cilantro and mint are no more.

Yesterday the doctor put four real big needles in my neck. They used an x-ray machine so they could make sure the needles got all the way to my spine. I really liked that they had one nurse in there with the only responsibility of rubbing my arm the whole time and telling me how good I was doing. That was a nice touch. It was great though, I was able to move my head a lot more than I have in the last long time, and without it hurting. Now it’s bruised a bit because of the four big needles, but next week they are going to do it again, just to make sure it works. That’s the medical update.

Today has been a real good day. I was randomly window shopping and ran into Jarren and Emilee. I haven’t seen them since they moved to Canada I think. But they moved to Orem on Sunday. Too bad they missed Chris and Elena who moved to Arizona two weeks ago. It’s really kind of weird. I see all my friends going all over the place, and I wonder what I’m doing. But that’s okay. I’m moving on too, just not physically moving a whole lot yet.

Then in the mail today Among the Enemy arrived and a gift card for my birthday from a store. That’s fun mail.

And we had an incredible presidency meeting this afternoon. We got all but one calling figured out, that makes 8 for this week. We did 8 last week. The whole Relief Society in my ward is getting rearranged this month. We figured out four or five different possible HFPE topics. We worked out next months visiting teaching assignments. And we swapped recipes. It was a good meeting.