Pobrecita!!

My poor baby girl got hurt this week! Mark was playing with her in the field like we do every day. She was having a blast chasing her frisbee and her tennis ball when she walked up to Mark ready for another chase and he noticed her foot had blood on it. He examined it and she had split her toe nail!! Of course he immediately called me and I asked him to bring her to work for Dr. R to look at her. It was not too bad, her toe nail just needed to be clipped back and then bandaged untill bedtime. It was the much needed Elisabethan Collar that really got to her. She was so pitiful!! All night she acted as if she was being punished with the forelorn looks and the refusal to eat her dinner. She did not seem to mind the collar. Everytime we had to put it back on her she sat still and and lifted her chin for us, but after it was velcroed in place the eyes would droop and the tongue would slowly come out and go back in again. She layed around all evening pouting. Finally, bedtime came and it was time to take the bandage off. She was very good and sat very still for me. Mark had to hold her head so she would stop licking my hands as I was working on unwrapping the very well taped up bandage! The very second she new her imprisionment was over, she started racing around and wanting to play. Of course she had to get in a cat chase before being banished to her crate for the night! All in all she is just fine and back to her annoying self!!

I just want to thank the Lord for this beautiful Spring He has given us! The air is clear and warm and there is not a cloud in the sky.

Lots of busy days ahead of us! Mark will be walking on May 1, 2009 and May 3rd will be our one year anniversary!! The house hunting begins shortly after next weekend in Tuscaloosa. Keep us in your prayers that we will be able to find good housing that will allow our Rottie and that is in our price range. Oh, and the packing has begun! Thankfully it will not be too bad because we never really fully unpacked!

The Lord has been so good to us to guide us where He wants us to be. The move to Tuscaloosa was not our first choice, but it is were God wants us to be and we are looking forward to the move.

Weekend in Birmingham

Mark and I went to Birmingham this past weekend for the second time this year! I know it has been way too long inbetween trips but school is very demanding of Mark's time. We arrived Thursday afternoon about four (just ahead of traffic!), immediately dropped the dog off, and headed to Wings ( our favorite place to eat). Our wings were of course fabulous, but our time spent there was cut short due to a very friendly drunk guy who could not keep his hands off Mark and an old coworker.
Friday started off with a wonderful surprise! I was invited to go with my sister's family to her ultrasound to find out the sex of their baby. It's a boy! Everyone was excited except for my neice, Emory. She was super concerned that the nurse was hurting my sister, so to try to ease her discomfort, I took Emory to the caffeteria to pick out a special drink ( also so Sarah could finish up her Dr.'s appointment). Emory picked out a purple drink and a red drink for Aunt Grace! Next stop was to drop Emory off at a friend's house and Sarah and I had a great time seeing friends and shopping! Later that night, Mark and I went to eat at another one of our favorite places, Kobe, and went bowling with some frinds. I won the first game, but I was challenged well!
Saturday morning I got to sleep in some and then go to the mall and lunch with another friend. We went to Zaxby's (what else!) after some very important sho shopping. Mark and I then went to have some Margarittas with Kara and had a great time! When alcohol is involved, you know it will great, especially with her!! A wedding was next on our agenda and then an evening with our old high school buddies. There was alcohol there too!
Unfortunately, we had to head back to Atlanta on Sunday but not before a fantastic lunch with my inlaws and getting my mother-in-law started up on FB.
It was a great weekend!!! I love you all!!

Who Put All The Sugar On The Trees?

Ok so I am a little late on telling ya'll about our snow day, but better late than never, right? I honestly do not watch the news on a consistant basis so the fact that one of my friends called me super excited Sunday morning that it was snowing in Alabama was kind of a shock. But, unfortunately, I do not live in Alabama, I live in Georgia where it was raining, not snowing! Mark and I were very dissapointed. Mark more so than me, but both of us were walking around the apartment grumbling and complaining that of course it was snowing were we did not live anymore (a very pleasant way to start out our Sunday morning don't you think!) Let me stop right here and call Mark out on his 50/50's. If you have been around him long enough, you will find out that Mark is not a "lucky" person when it comes to 50/50. His chances statistically speaking are the same as everyone else, however his "luck" is more like 10/90 realistically. I am not kidding you! I did not believe it at first, but I have had to regretfully agree with him that yes in fact he is wrong 90% of the time when faced with 50/50's. (he will not abmit to being wrong on any other occasion!) So the fact that it was snowing in Alabama and raining in Georgia really got under his skin! Well, not but about an hour later the snow started to come down in large white clumps. It was a beautiful scene watching the snow fall! I called my friend to let her know that it had started to snow and finally be able to genuinely share in her excitement.
God blessed us again for Mark's open lab to be cancelled due to the weather, so Mark did not have to drive to Tech on the icey roads. Instead we took Jade outside to enjoy the unusual weather. It was her first snow and she did not know what it was at first. We treaded though the melting mush to her field so she could run around and play in it. She had a blast!! Juking this way and that way, leaping over hills and bushes and sliding around on the wet ground! We took several pictures and videos which are posted on both mine and Mark's Facebook pages. Go check them out!
One of my mother's favorite childhood stories to tell about me is when we were sitting in a chair together one winter's morning and I looked out the window behind us at the snow that had fallen the night before. A mixture of shock, disbelief, and wonder spread over my face as I asked my mother, "who put all the sugar on the trees?" I gave my mother the story of a lifetime after I exclaimed triumphantly, "I know! Dan did it!"

Series of Unfortunate Events

Okay, so last week was a doozie! It started off with a bad Monday, which is never good. Tuesdays are never good days for me because I have to bring the dog with me to work. I never know how she will behave. But this past Tuesday was horrible! One of my responsibilities at work is to print out the next day's appointment sheets and call the clients to remind them of their appointments. I had just printed out the sheets and I was getting up to get them when my pinkie finger on my left hand got stuck between the counter and my chair as I swiveled. I had some good momentum going as I was swiveling (it amuses me to make myself spin in my chair!) and so I smashed my finger so well that it took two tugs to remove it from its pinned position. I immediately jumped up and stated dancing around because it was some of the worst pain I had ever experience! I also had to keep a scream bottled up because we had a client in the first exam room which is very close to my desk. My entire hand was killing me. It felt like every one of my fingers was being cut off and the pain was quickly spreading up my arm. I have never gotten nausiated from seeing blood, but after I looked at my pinkie I started to feel the blood drain from my face and became very weak. I knew I was about to faint so I went to the bathroom (so I was not on display at my desk), put my head between my legs and fainted. I was not out but a few seconds and then had to vomit. That, however, did not make me feel better. I got up to get a band-aid from my boss's medicine cabinate, but she wanted me to wash my hand first. On my way back to the bathroom, a coworker asked me to look something up for her, but I could not think straight to do it. I walked back to the back, stumbling the whole way, fighting not to faint again, when my boss looked at me and told me to go sit in her office. I did and tried to put my head between my legs, but i could not keep it there. All I could do is rock back and forth trying not to focus on the intense pain, but on not fainting and not vomiting. Another one of my coworkers brought me a cup of water and a cold wash cloth because I was pouring sweat. The moment I realized that I was in shock was when my hands started to tingle like they were going to sleep. It did not take long for the sensation to rise all the way up my arms and for them to turn completely white. My hands became immobile and were stuck in a crab's pinscher like position and I was slurring my words. At this point, I was solely focusing on willing myself not to get into anymore trouble than my body already was. Thankfully that only lasted for about a minute, then the blood started to flow back into my limbs. I made a full recovery just in time to eat lunch!

My next unfortunate event occured on Saturday night at a restaurant. I was eating fried rice when someone asked me a question. When I went to answer, I inhaled a piece of corn and could not breathe. I coughed it up pretty quickly though. The third unfortunate event was this morning. I was sitting at my desk and had to sneeze so I sneezed. I then had to blow my nose as a result of that sneeze. Then my nose started gushing blood. I stopped my hemoraging rather quickly. Pay attention next time something happens to you. Chances are they happen in threes so watch out!

FB

Once upon a time I was free. I did stuff that every normal, free person does. I worked, went to school, did homework, hung out with my friends on the weekends and got as much sleep as possible. I did not get "online" that much. I checked me email twice a month (which annoyed my mother), I used the internet for school and did basic research. Then a friend, who will remain nameless, kept bugging me to sign up on Facebook. I did not want to becasue I have never been that interested in doing computer related things. The more and more my friends talked about it the more curious I became. So I logged on for the first time, filled out all my info, and immediately became a slave to Facebook.

First, my enslavemnet started off slow. I would log on once a day to change my status and to read about what my friends are doing. Everyday, I would have more and more friend requests so naturally that increased the number of times a day I would log on to Facebook. Suddenly, I started to receive "flair" and "bumperstickers" and "invites" to causes and events. After I figured out how to access all that stuff, the length of time I spent logged on would increase. It started off low, about five to seven minutes, then the time rapidly started to increase until it spilled over and I needed to log on more times a day to get in all I wanted to look at on Facebook. Soon, the enslavement increased. I did not notice it at first because the chains were tightening in very small increments. But, it did not take long to realize that I no longer type like I used to. My sentences were all screwed up. Sometimes, they were not even sentences just sentence fragments. I no longer capitalized anything. I started using alien acronyms like "lol", "brb" & "ttyl" among many others. What finally caught my attention was that I no longer used any kind of puctuation at the end of a sentence except the exclamation point. I did not use puntuation at all in my sentences anymore. I found myself using commas, colons, semicolons and parentheses to form different smiley faces and hearts. The clincher was when my coworkers invited me to join a specific application on Facebook called Mob Wars! I joined and immediatley I was hooked permanently. Of course, I had to bring my husband in on it too! What kind of wife would I be if I did not include him in everything?! Now, I check FB more times a day than I can count and I stay connected longer than I care to reveal.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day is the holiday of love. It triggers fantasies of beautiful flowers, sparkling gifts, and love in every girl's mind and anxiety & inevitable doom in every guy's mind.

Mark and I learned very early that higher expectations lead to a harder fall. Our first Valentine's Day was a complete disaster. It was not because of the traditions expected of the holiday, it was for personal reasons. The second time V-Day rolled around we thought we would do it right. We made plans to go to dinner with another couple to J. Alexanders. The pressure got to both of us and we ended up fighting the entire night. Third time's a charm, right? We did nothing. We got each other small gifts and I think we rented a movie and ordered pizza. We learned that pressure ruins everything. The fourth year, Mark sent me some beautiful Daisies to my work and we made plans for the weekend, but that night we fought over a stupid miscommunication. The next year we did absolutely nothing except give each other cards because Mark could not make in into town. I am pretty sure there was a fight about that, too. Last year, we were planning a wedding and that put enough pressure on us. We did not need to add fuel to the fire! This year, Mark and I got it right. He surprised me by sending me 32 long stemmed white, pink, & red Tulips. He remembered my favorite flower! Then he took me to one of my absolute favorite restaurants (The Melting Pot) the night before V-Day (less presure!). We had a fabulous time! I almost thought that the night was going to be ruined because of Mark's school. He was handed a take home test Thursday at 3pm. When he got home, he ate a quick meal (his last before we went out) and got started on his test about 4pm. He worked on that test until 5:30am , went to bed, and got back up at 8:30am to continue the test. I know because I am a light sleeper and it always wakes me when he gets up and down. When I got up at 9:30am, I immediately made him some coffee and kept it coming until he had to leave to turn in his test at school at 3:30pm. He worked on his test the entire time. Bless his heart! He did not even eat since he started the test! He was so stressed and sleep deprived that I thought he would not be up to dressing up and going out, but he surprised me! He was in a good mood and ready to shower and go eat even though he just drove in Atlanta rush hour to turn in his test. He even opened the car door for me and was willing to have his picture taken to remember the occasion. He looked good, too! I rarely get to see him in anything other than cargo pants and a t-shirt, so the button down and tie was a welcomed change! To be fair, he hardly gets to see me in anything other than scrubs so I know he was pleased to see me all spiffed up as well!