Apparently I've been Stressed

Apparently I've been just a little stressed. I have shingles. Yes, I know I'm young for it. Every time my dad answers the phone, he calls me "Old Women." Thanks Dad. But here's what's been going on to make me so stressed.

Carl started his rotations at the hospital. Right now, he's in surgery, which means he wakes up before 4, gets home sometimes at about 7, still has to study, and get to bed by 9.

I haven't gotten enough sleep lately because I'm a light sleeper. When Carl's alarm goes off at 3:45, I wake up as well. Sometimes I go back to sleep quickly. Sometimes not. The other day, I stayed awake worried about my care plan for school and then realized I had already turned it in.

School ends on the 18th. Yippee! However, that means my time is taken up with papers, papers, and more papers. Oh, and tests. Joy.

My class I'm taking right now is horrible. It's only a eight week test, but they decided to squeeze 5 tests into that. You do the math. That's a test about every 2 weeks. No time to rest in between.

The professors for this class are horrible. Their favorite line is "this is in the book, so I'm not going to cover this." They also lecture incredibly fast, so it's impossible to take notes. Basically, I'm having to teach myself. It's a pain.

I have a mid-curricular exam coming up. They told us about this test this semester and have expected us to study for it on our own. Um...who has time to study for that with everything else? They expect us to pass with a 78% or we have to take an extra class next semester. I really do not want to have to do that.

I joined a gym a couple weeks ago and have been going nearly everyday. So far, it has payed off and I've lost 5 pounds since joining! I'm really excited to lose weight, but it's one more thing on my plate. I'm worried that my current condition is going to cause a setback but I'll do the best I can. However, the gym also causes a problem because I go after work so sometimes don't get home until after 7-7:30, still have to shower, get dinner, and study.

Sometimes I feel really overwhelmed with everything. School, work, gym, and keeping up the house take up my entire life. My house is constantly a mess because I don't have time to clean it. It's fantastic.

Because of everything I've had going on, I've had to cut somethings out of my life. One of these has been blogging. Another thing has been reading. I've read one book in the last couple of months. If you know me, you know this is a tough thing for me. I hope that I will be to catch up on stuff when this semester is over.

Sorry this post was kind of a pity me post. I just had to get some stuff off my chest. Thanks for reading!

Sad news

School started yesterday. Ugh. I was kind of excited for it, at least excited to have some structure in my life and to be doing something. I think it's going to be harder semester for a couple reasons. It's harder material and I'm doing it faster (8 weeks instead of 16), which means longer classes and more studying. They adopted a +/- system for grades, so to get an "A", I have to get a 96% instead of a 92%. We'll see how that goes...

Carl's been back in school for a while now. He's in the hospital and does rotations, were he is in different sections of the hospital for a little bit at a time. So far, he's done radiology, ER, Neurology, and is in Psych for another month.

In other sad news, I found out last Friday that the gym where I work at is closing at the end of September. Not enough money coming in. With the economy, a gym membership is one thing people are cutting out. I'm frustrated with it. It took me so long to find a job and I finally found one that will work with my school schedule and let me do homework/blog/read when it's slow. This job was perfect for my schedule. And now I'm back on the job market. Ah-well. If you hear of anything let me know!

And now I have to go study about kidney problems. Joy.

Yesterday was our 4th wedding anniversary. He got me slippers.

My favorite Christmas present

If anybody spends an extraordinary amount of time with me they soon notice my one (out of many) peculiarity:

I have an addiction to slippers.

There. I said it. That's the first step, right?

When I'm at home, I have my slippers on. I've been known to sleep with them on, mostly while sleeping on the couch. I get quite distraught when I lose one for the slightest second. I get frantic when people hide them from me. I take them to my in-laws house. My MIL has suggested I buy two pairs and just keep one at her house. I once took them to Olive Garden with a group of friends.*

I thought this obsession started when Carl and I lived in our first apartment. It was student housing, with that tile carpet floor. Meaning, no padding underneath the floor. My feet were uncomfortable walking sock-footed on the floor, so I started wearing my slippers all the time.

Recently, a good friend from college sent me a picture of me at Christmas. And there I was, wearing my slippers. That surprised me. I didn't remember wearing my slippers all the time, but there was proof. This made me think long and hard about my slippers. And I remembered when I would take my slippers to work.

Before you start thinking I'm completely nutso, let me explain. I worked at a pool, lifeguarding. This meant wearing flip-flops all the time, even in the winter. This wasn't too bad while I was lifeguarding, but in the lifeguard room it was freezing. This room was only connected to the building by one wall, so had three walls right next to the howling winds of Utah County in the winter. And these three walls were mostly windows.

As you can imagine, this room was quite cold. Which is why I brought my slippers to work. It was much warmer getting back from guarding and being able to put my slippers on my frozen feet, wrap up in a blanket, and try to get some homework done.

I will admit that I am much more attached to my slippers now. I go through a pair a year. Usually, by Christmas, the current pair is trashed. Most of the time, the only thing I can think of to ask for for Christams is a new pair of slippers. Carl knows that if he just gets me a pair, I'm happy.

You're probably wondering what brought this post on. My slippers are starting to die. One side of the right slipper has split open, with the padding hanging out. Soon, I'll have to duct tape it shut. Last year, I think, I sewed them back together. Maybe it's time for me to start getting slippers on my birthday and on Christmas.



*In my defense, I was at Colleen's and she dropped me off at Olive Garden, where I met Carl and our friends. So, I shoved the slippers in my purse. Makes sense, right?

A couple weeks ago, we had to opportunity to go, once again, to Nauvoo. It made Carl jealous: while he was on his mission, his mom never came to see him, but has seen Travis twice on his 3 month mission!

Anywho, the singles ward (yes, you read that right) planned a trip up to the Nauvoo Pageant and because Arlyn and Colleen are a part of the singles ward and so, by extension, we are to, we decided to go with them.

We left on Friday after a test Carl had and drove the 8 hours to Nauvoo. There's no direct route, so we enjoyed miles and miles of corn. And soybeans. At least I think it was soybeans.

We got there a little bit before the pageant. It was kind of fun. They had set up the whole block with games and activities to do before the pageant. That's free. That automatically makes this pageant better than the Manti pageant. :) Of course, along with all the fun and games, this pageant was complete with anti-Mormon protestors. But honestly, would it be a good LDS event without them?

Of course, my of-so-friendly husband talked to the protestors. And talked. And got their tract. And then laughed at their tract afterwards. I wandered around while he engaged the protestors in uplifting conversation.

Before the pageant started, we found my friend David Smith in the lighting booth. He lived not very far from me as I was growing up and, although he's a few years older than me, we were good friends. He was designing the lighting for the pageant. It was nice to catch up with him.

The pageant was, of course, wonderful. It was about Joseph Smith and Nauvoo. It's nice to have a reminder about how much the pioneers sacrificed to get us here today. They turned off the outside lights on the Temple until the very end, then lit it up twice as bright. It was beautiful!

The next day, we drove around Keokuk for a little bit. We found an old bridge that we wanted to go look at. When we got back in the car, the car didn't want to turn on. We tried and tried. We turned off the lights, unplugged the GPS and iPod, and finally got the car to turn on. And then we promptly drove to Ace to get a new battery.

On Saturday, we mostly wandered around with Trav and his companion. They know all the good spots in Nauvoo now, so it was nice. At 4, we had an appointment at the temple to do baptisms with the singles ward. It took forever! We had a big group, so it took about 2 hours to be completely done. It was nice, though. I haven't done baptisms forever and was able to do some family names from Carl's side of the family.

For dinner, we went to Hotel Nauvoo. It is delicious! If you're going to be in Nauvoo, go there for dinner. If it's busy, you might have to get a reservation. (we had to, because of the pageant.) It's a little bit pricey ($15 a person) but it is a wonderful buffet with the best food on a buffet!

The next day we headed home, but stopped at Ken's in Peoria. Michelle and the girls were in Utah, so we took pity on Ken and took him out to dinner. As we all piled in the Cherokee, once again, it wouldn't start. But worse than before. Wouldn't turn over, nothing. So we all piled in Ken's car and went to a Chinese buffet. It was good, but two buffets in as many days propably wasn't good for my diet....

After dinner, we decided that the starter was out on the Jeep and couldn't be fixed until tomorrow at the dealership. I should amend that-the boys decided the starter was out. It only took them a couple of hours in the heat while I stayed inside Ken's air-conditioned house and watched Cake Boss on TLC.

So, Arlyn, Carl, and I all piled in the Corolla and headed for home. We didn't get in too late, but we were excited to hit our beds. Unfortunately, Colleen ended up in Peorio until Tuesday waiting for her car to get fixed.

It was fun going to the pageant; I've never done that before. Seeing Nauvoo is always fun and I'm glad I live so close I can go a couple times a year!

I Love to See the Temple

I had the opportunity on Friday to go to the Louisville Temple. I went with Colleen (mother-in-law) who works in the temple every other Friday, so it took a little bit longer. We left at about 7:20 and didn't get back until after 3! It kind of stinks out here, the temple is about an hour and a half away. Do a session (about 2 hours) and it's an all day thing. I haven't been able to go to the temple very often because it is an all day thing. Plus, the temple isn't always open. It's usually just open either in the morning or at night. They usually only run a couple sessions a day. I usually can't go due to school and work.

It really makes me miss Utah and all the temples. I grew up with a temple 5 minutes away and plenty of others within driving distance. If I wanted, I could do baptisms before school. It was easy to go do a session, it was just a couple of hours. Now, I wish I would have taken more advantage of it. I kept putting it off, because I could always go tomorrow or was too busy. I miss that now. I wish that when I wanted to, I could just drop by the temple. I wish it didn't take up half the day.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that the temple is a blessing and I didn't realize how blessed I was until I moved out here. And I guess I'm also trying to say to all of you in Utah, you are blessed. Take advantage of it. And now I'll step off my soapbox.

P.S. sorry if the picture is huge. It's of the Louisville Temple. And it's tiny.

Alright, I guess I've procrastinated long enough. It's time to update this thing. So far, summer has been good. Here's the rundown of what we've up to so far:

Finished school (both of us)
Visited Phil and Bonnie in Charlotte
Colleen and I went to visit Ken and Michelle
Went to Nauvoo to visit Carl's little brother (he's on a mini-mission there this summer)
Went to Chicago and saw JoAnne get baptized
I started my summer class (Research, ugh!)
Carl has been studying and studying and studying and studying for his board exam, which is tomorrow
I found a job at started it this week. I'm working at Contours Express, a women's gym.

Umm....I think that's about all we've up too. I can't think of anything else exciting that we did. I'll be better about updating with more detail!