Gnat In My Lipgloss

I don't have any huge dramas in my life right now, and I'm feeling rather emotionally stable (amazing I know) so I'm just gonna blog about all the little things I have caught my little pooches partaking of. Here goes...

fake plants... of any sort, shape or color
garlic bread, which was then hidden in the couch for later... don't ask
toilet paper- daisy's fav
chocolate chip cookies
halls cough drops
harry potter book- still feelin' that one
their own poop- yep, he's that gross
Daisy's poop- he doesn't even let it cool
flies- Wrigley's fav
dirt
grass
bird seed- they both loved this
tampons pulled from trash
Cody's freshly made grilled cheese sandwich- still snickering over that one
ice that falls out of fridge
hand lotion
and yes... Dad's favorite.... JUNE BUGS!!!

Well, I think my trial period with blogging is over. I officially love it. It is just an outlet for all my feelings, good or bad. I also LOVE reading all my responses from you guys. My little heart is just so happy when I see I have a new comment. I find myself wanting to comment back to the comments, but I don't have a way to do that :(. So keep talking to me guys, I really like reading them! I also find myself carrying my camera around more so that I can take pictures of my life to post them on my blog at a later date! Ha, I'm so pathetic. Oh well, as Amber always says, it is what it is!

So, I haven't had a whole lot to blog about lately. I'll just give you a general idea of my life right now...

We bought our first christmas tree this year, after almost 3 years of marriage! We finally have a place to put it too! Anyway, we don't have any lights for it yet, and all my decorations are packed away at my parents house for the time being, so we just have a huge bare tree in our living room. Yet it still makes me happy to see it.

I had a bad time at school yesterday. I had to switch out patients half way through because my patient had a cold sore and we can't work on them if they have anything contagious. This meant that I had to find a new patient (not easy to do) break down the entire chair and clean it (very time consuming) and then start all over again with my new patient. All in all, I had very little time to practice what I needed to practice and was very frustrated by the end. However, I did get a very reassuring email from our director letting me know that it wasn't my fault and that she would work extra with me next time. Her little pep talks always make me feel better. (no, it's not brown nosing either!)

Well, that's about all I have to say. I'm looking forward to the holidays and eating all that great food!

I've been a little sick lately, just an annoying cold. I just can't seem to kick it though. So I was getting ready for bed last night and I heard a little voice in my head, sounding remarkably like my mother's, urging me to use my vaporizer. Now, I'm pretty sure that my mom thinks vaporizers can cure cancer, so I went ahead and fixed it up just in case she's right. It was working perfectly, giving off the perfect amount of steam (the result of the perfect combination of salt and water my mother had fixed for me earlier that day) and creating a wonderful soft gurgling noise in the background. Perfect conditions for me to fall asleep. Which I almost did... then I heard (in the very far off world of wakefulness) the sound of water pouring into my vaporizer. I slowly opened my heavy eyes to see my very thoughtful husband messing with my very perfect vaporizer.
Now, vaporizers are like emergency breaks in cars... men have to adjust them whenever they are anywhere near them. Cody is no different. The perfectly working vaporizer was a allure he just couldn't resist tampering with. I knew the outcome of this tampering before he was even finished pouring in the first glass of unneeded water. This happens every year... he doesn't think it's producing enough steam so he adds way to much water, then he decides that didn't do the trick so he pours in enough salt to kill anything green within a ten mile radius. This apparently has the desired effect, for he then comes to bed. Here's the fun part... about ten minutes in the vaporizer starts spewing burning hot salt water everywhere accompanied by a loud gruesome fart-like noise that no one could possibly sleep through. I try anyway, knowing that the vaporizer is my only hope of getting through this night without coughing my head off. Cody has no such aspirations however, and innocently says, "I think I may have messed the vaporizer up." Really?? Nooo.... Well, because I know he was just trying to help me out I nicely say, "Yeah, I think maybe you did." To which he responds, "I was just trying to help you feel better, but I think it would have been better if I just left it alone, it's the thought that counts right?" Now what do I say to that? OF COURSE it would have been better if he had just left it alone, it was perfect! So, knowing he can't sleep with it that loud I tell him he can unplug it if he wants to. Self sacrifice in the works. To which he calmly responds... "you can just reach down and pull the plug." Okay. Fine. I reach down and try to decipher which is the right plug, pick one that seems right, and pull it out. My clock goes black. Sigh. I HATE having to reset clocks (this could be a whole other blog, seriously why can't the numbers just go backwards?). I finally get the right plug and the vaporizer goes silent. Finally, I can sleep.
Ten minutes later... my throat is so dry I can't swallow. I get up in the freezing cold house and get myself a nice big glass of orange juice (my dad's cure to cancer). Luckily we have just enough left to cure my dry throat. I drink about half and take the rest with me to the bedroom to drink later on in the night. While I'm up I notice that Cody has drifted off into a very peaceful sleep, uninterrupted by such things as sore throats and freezing houses, and I decided that maybe I could plug the vaporizer back in without waking him up, assuring me of that peaceful sleep. So I reach down and plug it in. No such luck, he immediately begins to wake up, due I'm sure to the gaseous noises emitting from the vaporizer. Sigh, fine I'll just leave it unplugged. I reach down and unplug the vaporizer AND.... knock over my glass of orange juice!!!! Seriously? Giving up all pretence of trying not to wake my slumbering, unsick husband, I turn on the overhead light to clean up the mess. Orange juice is EVERYWHERE. On my sheets, pillow, WALL, carpet and headboard. I go get a towel and sop up what I can, turn out the lights and lay back down in bed. No vaporizer, No more soothing OJ for my sore throat, a wet bed and a snoring husband. Yes, it is the thought that counts, but sometimes, I wish he wouldn't think about me so much.

Is it just inbred in the human race to have to have things complicated in order to feel as though they are "professional"? Does everything have to have at least two names (one of them completely unpronounceable) to be accepted as "scientific"? I mean really people, does it matter whether I have one space or two spaces after each sentence? Do teachers really sit there and evaluate each and every little space! Okay, the source of all these questions? The two page paper I was assigned that should have only taken about 30 minutes to write, but instead took almost 3 hours because I had to have each journal/book/manual cited exactly in the right way, each tab scrutinized to be sure it was the right measurement and each frickin "parenthetical citation" (please note the extreme sarcasm here) in the appropriate place with the appropriate names and dates. Really, who freakin cares! I've always said that there is someone, somewhere, that has way to much time on their hands that just sits around making up stupid rules that the rest of the world has to follow.
Some other examples of his ridiculous rule making include: not being able to use calculators on math tests (I mean really, let's make sure we're in the right century here folks!) not being able to park in those yellow striped lanes in the wal-mart parking lot, really how often are those used and they take up a lot of useable space!, how about having to have the receipt to return a product that actually has the store label written on it! I could go on and on, but I'm actually getting myself all riled up listing them. Anyway, let's just try to simplify things from now on, okay?

I got a phone call from a really good friend tonight who is going through a really hard time right now. She had had a hard day and was upset and crying and just needed to talk. I was happy to listen to her, afterall, she has been there for me so many times before. As we talked my heart just ached for her. She's in a situation that I have no power over. I can't snap my fingers and make it all go away, I can't really give her what she needs to truly be comforted. As a friend, I want to be the fixer. I want to walk through the problem with you and talk about how it can be made better and then smile and laugh when it's all over. But what do you do when that's not possible? When all you can do is hold them while they cry? When you know the silence on the other side of the line is your friend trying so hard to hold it all together. Trying to talk through her tears. That just tears me up inside. That helpless feeling you get when you know you're not enough. I can tell her that I'm here for her, that she can call me anytime, but I know I'm not the one she needs most right now. How do you help when all you can do is cry with them?

I am so excited because one of my very favorite holidays is coming up...Thanksgiving! I know, most people think Christmas is the best, and I admit, it is good...but Thanksgiving has always been my favorite. It's not the food so much (though I do love me some good ole Grandma Sue pecan pie minus the pecans!) It's just getting together with family and having the whole day to be together. We start early with the cooking, okay, watching Mom cook; this is the best time cause all the "girls" stay in the kitchen and the boys have to leave :) We get some really good girl talk here. Then me and my sister usually pitch in and set the table up with all the yummy food, this is usually our one contribution to the meal that wasn't bought somewhere else. We can always hear the boys in the living room talking about things boys talk about...computers, sports, computers. By this time, I'm starving but we have to wait for the broccoli cheese casserole to get done (my sister's favorite...urgh). Finally we get to sit done and eat! Dad and Amber always joke about who gets the most of Dennise's rolls. And Cody and I load up on mashed potatoes. After dinner it's finally time for dessert! This is the hard part... finding the delicate balance of exactly how much of each "favorite" dessert you can stuff in your mouth before you get to full to eat anymore. I always start with the chocolate pie, but I make sure I get that pecan in there too, and if there's room later I may try some pumpkin. Grandma always scolds me for taking the pecans off the pie, but we both know she's secretly glad because she always eats them off my plate. I have so many memories of wonderful times on this one day of the year. I am looking forward to making new ones with Cody's family too. Yah, Thanksgiving is by far the best holiday there is!

I know I actually chose to go back to school and I knew what I was getting into, blah, blah, blah... but ya know what? I'm tired of studying! I know I shouldn't complain, I'm still soooo thankful I was accepted into this program, and again, I chose to do this BUT I'm tired of studying! Okay, now that that's out... I really do love this program! I got the opportunity to go to Sparta recently and work with some low income kids, and I LOVED it. I never thought I would want to work with kids (ya know, small mouths, big attitudes) and especially not low income kids who probably haven't bathed in quite awhile, whose parents don't care enough to teach them any hygiene, oral or other, but, this trip changed all that. These little kids look up at you like you KNOW things, like you have all the answers.... yikes! I just loved teaching them how to improve their lives. We put a floride varnish on their teeth and at the end of the day you knew you actually made a difference in their little lives. You're probably thinking, yeah, okay kids have pretty good teeth, they go see the dentist all the time etc.... But not these kids. I saw children who actually made me cry. Some of these kids had half their teeth just gone, and not because they were losing their baby teeth, but because they just rotted out of their mouth. Some had teeth that were only half there, the other half nowhere to be found. One child wouldn't open her mouth because her teeth caused her so much pain. So, yeah at the end of the day we KNEW we had made a difference. I loved it, I want to work with these kids! I want to see those innocent little eyes looking up at me, trusting me when I say I won't hurt them, believing me even through their obvious fear... depending on ME. Wow, what an amazing feeling!

Well, here we go. I'm trying this out with no commitments- don't judge me if I am an absentee blogger sometimes. I'm crazy busy at times, and I might forget. I've thought about doing this for awhile now, but I have had my doubts. I don't have a lot of time to donate to this, I'm not sure anyone actually wants to peek into my crazy brain, I don't know if I have enough to say to have my very own blogspot. Then I realized - I need another reason to not study (I've about used up all my old ideas), a peek into my brain might make others feel better about themselves, and I ALWAYS have something to say. I can't promise these blogs will always be funny or entertaining, I can't promise I won't get too mushy or that I won't spell things wrong. Sometimes I get up on my soapbox, sometimes I say too much- but in all my faults, you will always find me at the heart of my blogs. Feel free to comment back- It makes me feel great to see people actually read what I write! Hope you enjoy!