So, let's try this again.

Random life updates:

• Aharon's health problems have been narrowed down to two possibilities:
  1. A spinal column injury (this all started in his back in July) that did possible nerve damage.
  2. Ankylosing Spondylitis
• Back in December, I got a promotion at work. I went from the accounting department to the marketing department. I'm now the marketing coordinator which mostly means I have to keep people organized.
  
• The admin assistant Raechal (at work) talked management into giving us more flexibility over our schedules. She now works 9 hour days and gets to leave at noon every Friday. I now work a normal week every other week and then a four day week of ten hour days, so I get every other Friday completely off. Plus I'll be here almost 2 hours before the rest of the marketing department shows up, which gives me time to get started on projects without interruption.
• I finally graduated from college with a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in business. (The applied means I took a lot of business classes and less "general education" classes.) Either way, it's good to be finished.
  

Tired

I don't get enough sleep.

53 Days

I have exactly 53 days of higher education left in my life. (Unless I go to law school, which looks less and less likely as the days go by.)

I would just like to say that I feel that these past 2 years have been the biggest waste of my time. I got really good at knowing how to use unlimited practice quizzes to get 100% on final exams that counted for 75% of my grade, thus ensuring little effort had to be put into learning.

And I recently sat down and figured out that as long as I get a C- (70% - the required grade to pass) in my last ever (and current) class, I will still graduate magna cum laude and on the Dean's list. So the little motivation I had to do well is pretty much gone.

I am such a major slacker.

New Year's Resolutions

Now that my crazy, insane January is over, I feel that it is time to get started on my New Year's Resolutions.

It takes 2 weeks to make something habit. I had planned to get organized and get going on all of this starting in January, but things got in my way. For starters, I find it's easiest to begin something new on a Sunday or a Monday. So, starting with the month on a Friday was out of the question. Since it takes 2 weeks to form a habit and I was going to be out of town the 12th - 16th, I figured it would be a waste to get started the first full week of January. Once I got home, I spent a week trying to catch up on housework, homework, and laundry. Then last week, I was pretty sick.

But now, it's a new month. And although I went back to bed this morning after Aharon left for work instead of doing Wii Fit, I still feel like I'm going to get the hang of this.

My goals for the year include the following:

• Keep track of every penny. After we got married, we stuck to a budget. However, it was easy to not record some income and transactions and use the extra money for whatever. I found that this didn't give me the snapshot of our finances at the end of the year that I had hoped for. So this year, it doesn't matter where the money comes from or where it's going...it is getting recorded. My system is improved and ready-to-go. At the end of the year, I will know to the penny what we earned and where it all went.
  
• Plan for meals better. We spend too much money eating out because I haven't shopped properly or don't want to come home from work and spend an hour working on dinner. So this year, I'm planning ahead, shopping accordingly, and cooking whatever I can in advance.
  
• Exercise. I have put on 25 pounds since 2007. This makes me very unhappy and unfit, so those 25 pounds are going bye-bye. For real this time. Wii Fit is going to help me!
• Organize and prioritize. We need to finish the church library quickly and keep the website updated. Those are things we volunteered to do and we need to do them in a way that reflects well on our church and on our commitment to these projects.
  

January (Actually, Almost February) Already?!

I cannot keep up with myself.

Aharon hasn't been back to any doctors lately. His last appointment, the one where the doctor told him it was Fibromyalgia, was two days before Christmas. Things obviously got very busy at that point and then New Year's was here! I had to go out of town for work the second week of January. (To the Archery Trade Association 2010 show...wow.) After that, I came home to an apartment that hadn't had the slightest amount of cleaning done to it in almost a month, and about 7 loads of laundry needing to be done. I spent the next week getting things in order, getting doctors appointments for me to check my problems out, and trying to establish a routine.

Just when I felt like things were getting in order, I get hit with probably the worst week of female problems ever. I can barely move and I haven't ate much since Sunday. It's absolutely killer. (Sorry if any guys are reading this!)

I would really like to get a good routine going this year. I know that an entire month is pretty much over, but that doesn't mean that I should just give up on the entire year. I just feel like everything is against me. It's my final semester of school - at last- and I just found out I'm going to be a credit short. Luckily I can test out of English Comp at SC4 and still graduate without too much effort, but it still throws a brick in my plans. My best friend, Kadie, is getting married May 1st. My commencement is May 9th. So starting May 10th, I pretty much have a brand new life to adjust to. A life where I don't have to come home from work and do homework or spend weekends frantically writing papers.

So I feel like whatever routine I establish between now and May will end up changing after graduation. But then down the line we'll have a house and kids and routine will change again. I don't like change. Well, I do and I don't. It's too much to adjust to.

I already can barely fall asleep at night.

The Crazy Catchup Post

Life has been out of control lately. Here's the update:

Back in August, Aharon was having severe back muscle spasms. He was almost constantly in pain and could barely move. He went to a nearby doctor who told him he was just overworking himself and that his muscles would eventually adjust to his new job. In the mean time, she recommended that he take it easy after work and maybe get the occasional massage to help the muscles relax. She prescribed him flexeril and motrin 800. Neither even made a small difference in the pain. Eventually, his back started to feel better except for some occasional pain that he had experienced before. We figured it was all because of long hours at work and adjusting to a new mattress.

Then, one Sunday in September, Aharon woke up with terrible joint pain and a low grade fever. He said he felt like he had the flu, although he had no stomach pains, congestion, or sore throat. Although the fever went away later that day (and then occasionally came back only to leave again and never hit 100 degrees), the joint pain only got worse and worse. He would wake up in the morning unable to move. After a couple hours, he'd have some mobility back, but he just wasn't his normal old self. This continued all through September and into October. Finally, when the pain made its way into his knuckles, shoulders, and returned to his back, I took him to my doctor. (I've been seeing her for almost 10 years...she is great!)

After almost an hour of gathering family history and talking about all his different symptoms, we had a few suspicions, including the following:

• Rheumatoid Arthritis
  
• Lyme Disease
• Lupus
• Polymyalgia Rheumatica (rare in someone in their 20's, but it has happened before)
  

She decided to do blood work looking for all of those possibilities and really for anything that blood could reveal. In the mean time, though, she decided that polymyalgia was the most likely culprit and started him on prednisone, saying that a fast, complete disappearance of his symptoms would most likely confirm autoimmune. She also gave him meloxicam in case the prednisone didn't help. Within 2 days on predisone, he felt almost completely better. The back pain was still there, but we figured the back pain was its own problem and not related to his other symptoms.

A few days later, his blood work came back. He was negative for RA, lyme, and antinuclear antibodies. He didn't even have a high SED rate, indicating that his body wasn't suffering from any type of inflammation. The only thing unusual was a high count of strep antibodies. Our doctor decided to change her focus away from autoimmune (which she'd started treatment for) and instead consider rheumatic fever or a strep infection in the joints. She instructed him to finish the prednisone and then begin a full round of penicillin. She also gave him a higher dose of flexeril for his back figuring that it was work-related instead of another symptom.

Within three days of coming off the prednisone, his pain had completely returned. After a few days, he returned to the doctor because the pain was worse than before and he had been having bouts of small chest pains. She gave him another round of prednisone, this time keeping him on an extremely high dose for almost a week, and drew more blood. Those tests would show that the strep antibodies had decreased, but weren't gone. She decided a echo cardiogram was necessary to rule out rheumatic fever. (The echo revealed nothing unusual.) She also referred him to a rheumatologist, and told us she figured polymyalgia but wanted a rheumatologist to make the final call.

Last Wednesday, Aharon went to the appointment. He had been sent a packet of paperwork to complete before the exam. It had gone into extreme detail about family health history, current symptoms, medications that had been tested and how he had felt with the different medications, and all of his blood work results.

The doctor spent under 10 minutes in the room with Aharon. She flipped through his paperwork and asked him a few questions about being depressed. She then poked his knees, chest, and back in a few areas. She then announced that he had fibromyaliga, gave him a script for an anticonvulsant and for an antidepressant and told him to come back in 3 weeks. When he questioned her diagnosis and pointed out the strep antibodies in his blood and his fast reaction to prednisone, she told him that strep antibodies aren't ever a cause for concern if you don't feel sick, and that any problem will react well to prednisone for a short time. (He was on prednisone for almost a month! That's not a short time.)

I'm very skeptical. While there is some medical documentation of "fibromyalgia" responding to prednisone, I believe that to accept that research you also have to accept that fibromyalgia is, in fact, an autoimmune disorder. If it is an autoimmune disorder, why do doctors almost exclusively prescribe medications that work with your brain and not with your immune system the way prednisone does? There are too many issues here. Secondly, how often do you hear of males in their 20s being diagnosed with fibromyalgia? And on top of that, how often do you hear that diagnosis after the first visit? Fibromyalgia is notoriously difficult to diagnose. It seems to me that she just didn't want to put any work into his case.

Long story short, we did not fill the prescriptions. The next few weeks will be spent gathering all of his medical records from the various doctors he's seen about this problem, and then we will be attempting to get an appointment with a rheumatologist with Henry Ford Hospital. I'd trust Henry Ford Hospital over Port Huron Hospital any day.

Unfortunately, this all falls at a terrible time. We are almost to our insurance deductible for the year, and the year is about to end. That means more bills next year. I have to attend the ATA show for work in a couple of weeks, and I'll be gone for a full week. This pushes the time frame for a doctor's appointment back farther, because I insist on attending with him.

So hopefully we'll have a concrete, believable answer soon enough and a treatment plan for Aharon. Our busy season at work is quickly approaching, and Aharon will go from 27 to 32 hours a week to 45 to 54 hours a week. This all began when he was working short 27 hour weeks. I don't know how he'll make it through long weeks.

I'm ready for the new year to get here.

Really?

I do not understand mothers who feed their children organic food and soy and who have never let their kid have even a drop of sugar, but if their kid gets a cough, they rush to the doctor begging for antibiotics.

Really?!

Attention world!

Perhaps Aharon and I would like to enjoy our holidays and weekends at home.

Just a thought.

Adventures in Sarahland

This weekend, from Friday through Sunday, I was blessed with not having to deal with school. I didn't even have to think about it. Nope, not even a little tiny bit. So to celebrate, I stayed as far away from my laptop as possible. This is when the fun sets in.

I'm sure most everyone is familiar with distribution lists. If you have a job with email or attend a school with email, you are no doubt part of a distribution list. In case you aren't familiar, I'll explain: a distribution list is an email address within a domain (in this situation @sienaheights.edu) that an administrator can add certain contacts to manually or by using specific criteria. In this case, the distribution list in question contained all of Siena Heights University's seniors.

We still haven't gotten an official announcement yet from the school as to what exactly happened, but here are the facts as they occured:

• Thursday Night: I get an email to join a group in Facebook for SHU seniors. I'm in the network and my graduation year is set, so anybody in SHU's network on Facebook can see that I'm a senior. Not difficult. I don't care, so I delete the email. No doubt this request/email goes out to other Facebook users.
  
  
• Saturday Night: Somebody, presumably an employee at Siena Heights, decides to use the seniors' distribution list email to create a Facebook account, perhaps to have something to do with the previously mentioned Facebook group. This was obviously not thought through, since the emails to said email address will go to every singe SHU senior. This is confirmed when a ton of people get an email confirming that our Facebook account has been set up.
  

Corollary: At this point, a few seconds of thinking (that's not even an entire minute) will lead someone to realize what has happened here, and that the best course of action is to simply delete the email. The person in question will figure out what they did and correct the problem, and life will go on. I delete said email and close the laptop.

• Sunday Afternoon: Although I do not have school to worry about, I decide to check my email. I open my laptop and my gmail notifier politely informs me that I have 43 unread emails. This is amazingly high! I open up gmail and find 43 emails from other SHU students who thought the best course of action was to reply to the email they received from Facebook stating one of the following things: I don't have facebook and don't want it, please remove me from this list, this is a work email and I don't appreciate all the emails, etc.
  
  
• Sunday Night: Someone sends the following email: "Could people stop replying to , I don't need 100 emails a day from people complaining about getting 100 emails themselves." A nice attempt, really, but the general public is stupid and unless they fully understand why, they won't stop.
  
  
• Monday Morning: Case in point, I have 10 more emails when I get to work at 7 this morning. One is from Facebook, confirming the deletion of the account that started this whole disaster (this marks the milestone of 2 emails from Facebook sent to this address and thus all of SHU's seniors). SHU has obviously corrected the problem. However, the distribution list still exists, and as people arrive at work on Monday and start checking their emails, they start replying all the way back at the beginning of this disaster. After receiving about 20 more emails, I send out the following:
  Subject: Everybody stop replying to any email you get
  "Look, this isn't a hard concept. Somebody created a Facebook account using the email address which is an email address that forward to SHU students. Every time you reply to these emails or to anyone who replied to one of those emails, you're sending the email out to other people. Actual emails from Facebook accounted for 2 messages. The other 50 some were because everyone wouldn't just ignore the messages. They've obviously corrected the problem because the Facebook account has been deleted. So if everybody could just use their brains and ignore the emails and STOP REPLYING, then nobody would have a ton of unwanted emails in their inbox.
  Simple concept. STOP REPLYING!!!! Delete and carry on with your life."
  
  
• 5 minutes later on Monday Morning: One lone email, sent to me only, stating the following: "You should run for President."
  

Money Matters!

I have been thinking a lot lately. About two things. One's no big and deal and the other - I think - is a very big deal.

First of all, I am appalled by Obama's Nobel Peace Prize. However, I am not surprised. Former winners include Al Gore and Jimmy Carter. Seriously? As far as I'm concerned, it's a terrible insult to win such an award since it seems to favor misinformed individuals. And also socialism. That's all I'm saying on the matter.

Secondly and more importantly, why is everyone treating the phrase "Everyone's on a budget now" like that is a bad thing? Budgeting is good. Money management is good. Why does America have to act like this is such a terrible thing that Americans are budgeting and saving and paying down debt?!

My parents put a lot of effort into teaching me about money. We had these cool little banks from Money Matters (Crown Financial Ministries) that were divided into three sections. The first was a church for us to deposit our tithes. The second was a bank for us to deposit our savings. The third was a store for us to deposit our savings. When we got our allowance or babysitting money or birthday money, my parents would show us how to count it, how to figure out 10%, and then would make change for us if necessary so that we could deposit the appropriate amounts. When we were going shopping, our parents would get the money in the "store" section out for us to take with us. Sometimes, we spent it. Sometimes we didn't. When we didn't spend it, we'd get the option when we got home of putting it back into the store or putting some - or all - of it into the bank. It was a lot of fun.

Once we started to get older, mom would take us into the credit union with her so we could deposit money into our accounts. When I turned 16, mom took me to the credit union to help me open a checking account. For the first few months, until I got the hang of it, she would sit down with me once a week to make sure I was balancing correctly and then we'd go over the entire month when my statement came in the mail.

At 18, she made me an authorized user on her credit card. A few months after that, I got my own credit card and started fully taking responsibility for my finances.

Before gas prices skyrocketed to $3 and $4 a gallon, Aharon and I were making pretty good money. We didn't have car payments or car insurance to pay. Just cell phones, gas in our cars, savings, tithes, and spending.

I wouldn't say I had a shopping problem at that point in my life, but I definitely spent more than I needed to. Never too much, though.

And then, I had to buy a car. And with that came a car payment and car insurance. Shortly after that, Aharon had to buy a car, too. So we sat down and did up nice individual budgets. Aharon always stuck with his much better than I did. Mainly, though, because he was 99% cash and I was only about 5% cash. I prefered keeping my cash in the bank and a credit card in my purse. Aharon hated that idea, so he did the opposite.

When we got engaged, Aharon was unemployed. We sat down and worked out a budget that we could get by on with him on unemployment. That budget is the one we use now with just a few modifications. (Our rent is less than we planned; we set up a health savings account and contribute to that weekly) We are also making more money than we planned on. The extra money at the end of the month is certainly a welcome blessing.

Combining two people who were raised very differently in regards to money makes for some interesting opinions. I've definitely enjoyed it.

I guess the point I'm driving at here is that Aharon and I have been incredibally blessed lately. And I think part of that reason is because we're being careful and responsible. We have a budget. We use it.

So why does most of the world see that as unfortunate?

And the worst mother of the year award goes to...

On her son, who is suspected in 50 break-ins over the last 18 months and is now suspected in three small aircraft thefts:

His mother said she doesn't see anything wrong with what he's suspected of doing.

"I hope to hell he stole those airplanes — I would be so proud," Pam Kohler told a reporter, noting her son's lack of training. "But put in there that I want him to wear a parachute next time."

I don't like making decisions

The owner of the company I previously worked for called me yesterday. He offered me a twist of my old job back. Apparently their IT system has collapsed since I've been gone. I can't say I'm surprised at all. Their outside company really didn't know what was going on, and when I left they had nobody internally who knew anything about computers. So they definitely want me back to work with the network system. Also, Bill, the marketing guy who I totally miss working with, has taken on a lot of government projects and needs help with the organization and logistics of it all. So where my old job was IT/Office Administration/Design & Marketing, my new job would be IT/Design & Marketing/Government research and paperwork.

I have to say I did not expect them to ever try to get me back. I had made up my mind about leaving and I left for very specific reasons, such as the following:

• Drastically underpaid for 2 years. While I don't have an IT degree, the State median for a network administrator is more than double what I was being paid.
  
• Despite telling my boss that I had commitments in Port Huron that I could not change, I was forced to work in Madison Heights every Friday. And by work I mean sit at a desk and answer maybe 3 phone calls. This required about 80 additional miles of driving on Fridays because after driving to and from Madison Heights I had to go to and from Port Huron anyway. Oh, and they reimbursed mileage at $0.32 a mile. When this was all going on, gas was hovering around $3.75 - $4.25 a gallon.
  
• Stress. I only had one single vacation/sick day where I did not receive at least one phone call from work. And ironically enough, it was on the day I interviewed for the job I have now. Even after going home from work one morning with a terrible migraine, I got 2 phone calls and 14 text messages from work. Different people, different problems. None of them urgent. And I was sick!
• Unfair policies. The other office had a receptionist. (That was originally my job at the office I was at.) She made twice what I made and did about a tenth of the work. She also wore whatever she wanted to work to sit behind a desk all day. I once wore jeans because I knew I'd be on the floor under a computer most of the day, and I got yelled at for my "unprofessional-ism."
• A ton of overtime. I once worked 65 hours in a week. Twenty-four of those hours were straight. Thirty-five of them were either between 5 pm and 8 am or on Saturday or Sunday. I received not a single penny of time and a half. Straight pay only. Because they had me classified as "administrative" and they are exempt from required time and a half. [Side note: I'm "administrative" at my current job, and I get time and a half for overtime.]
  
• Holidays. We worked Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, the day after Thanksgiving, and Good Friday. I don't work any of those days now.
  

The job did have a few perks that my current job doesn't, such as the following:

• Christmas bonus. We don't get them here, but I got one every year at my old job. And it doubled every year. If this year were to follow that pattern, it would be two weeks' pay.
• More vacation time. If I was still at that job, I'd be 8 months away from being entitled to 4 weeks of vacation time a year. Right now, I get 1 week. I'll get 3 weeks in another 2 years.

They did offer me a pay raise with the new job. It's a 20% raise, but even that is still about 50% less than the State low wage for the job description.

Plus, my current job has a lot of perks that my old job didn't have such as the following:

• Much better insurance. I'm currently paying out of my check half of what I was paying for health insurance at my old job. At my old job, it was for health insurance only for me only. And it was crappy health insurance at that. Right now, paying half of what I was paying, I have outstanding health insurance for myself and Aharon with a contraceptive/fertility rider (which has already saved us over $2,000 since April), vision and dental for myself and Aharon, and disability and life for myself.
  
• Discounts. We get outrageous discounts on our products. Such good discounts, in fact, that Aharon is going to take up bow hunting and we are helping my Uncle get a new bow for a very low price. We also get free sweatshirts, t-shirts, and hats. Which is awesome. Especially since...
• The dress code here is relaxed. We are encouraged to wear our G5 and Quest clothing. Jeans are acceptable. Tennis shoes are everywhere. I've never seen a single skirt, tie, or suit coat.
  
• Every quarter, if we didn't call in at all (vacation days don't count), we get a $50 gift card. It's not much but it's a pretty easy $200 a year.
• The cool factor. Among my friends, it's cooler to work for G5 than an environmentalist group.

I do have to admit, I really miss the design work. I loved having something that I spend hours or days on be admired by so many people. I totally miss that. But would I give up what I have here for that little bit of happiness? I mean, without that, I can focus my design energies on church stuff. I really like working on that.

On the other hand, I love working here with Aharon. It's nice having the same office politics to discuss and both knowing what's going on with the company. Plus, they hired him at my request. He's a great employee and they like him, but part of the incentive to keep him is gone if I leave. Then they only have him to upset, not him and me.

Internal Conflict Ramblings

When did people get so self-absorbed? I mean, I know that we are sinful and that vanity is a very big problem in this country, but I'm talking about full-out "I'm the best person in the world" sorta stuff?

I've been having a lot of internal conflicts recently. Most of them center around one particular couple, and I do not care to make this information public. However, I've got to get my thoughts out there so they don't just bounce around in my head all the time.

I feel like as we (as people!) mature, ourselves should become less and less important. We get married, and our spouse becomes a ...responsibility, I guess, although in a good way. And then we have kids and there's even more responsibility, although in a totally different way.

And yet, I see so many people who are going through some of the "maturing" process and yet seem to be regressing in other areas. And it totally frustrates me to the point where I don't even want to associate with certain people anymore.

The worst of it is that I don't want to be considered judgmental. I try really hard to avoid that label, but I don't feel like I can sit around and act all approving of people whose decisions and actions I do not approve of. I tried really hard, and I even thought I did for a while, but I'm starting to realize I was forcing myself for the sake of others.

So I guess what I'm saying in a totally cryptic way (and no, I will not elaborate) is that I'm done. I'm not okay with the choices you are making, the way you spend your money, and the way you treat family who try very hard to love and support you. It's not an easy task. You're asking for a lot by expecting us to be happy and proud. There's not much for us to be happy about and enjoy judging by the way you're off in your own little world all of the sudden but still expect your family to provide everything for you. What happened to "control yourself; take only what you need from it"? And what's worse is that you had made progress. But then it was like you woke up one morning and decided to screw everyone who loves and cares and supports. You're going to do it your own way whether you fall flat on your face or not. And yet, when you do fall, you'll be back asking for someone else to get you by.

I refuse to be temporary support. Either you want me involved or you don't. Your actions of late say you don't, so let it be.

It will be hard, because I was very excited and full of love.

But I will not be used.

Pros and Cons

Saturday afternoon, Aharon and I went to our friends Jamie and Clare's wedding. We were excited for the wedding but also for the chance to catch up with some friends. Long story short, the reception seating was assigned. So, we invited the friends over instead.

However, I've been major slacking lately and my tiny little apartment was a huge mess.

We got a little bit of a head start, and 45 minutes after arriving home, I had accomplished all of the following:

• Washed, dried, and put away 3 days worth of dishes
• Emptied all 4 trashes and took them to the dumpster
• Swept the kitchen floor
• Vacuumed the rugs and bedroom carpet
• Wiped down the shower
• Scrubbed down the toilet
• Cleaned the kitchen and bathroom sinks
• Disinfected the kitchen and bathroom counters
• Cleaned the dust off the bathroom spacesaver
• Cleaned the bathroom and bedroom mirrors
• Dusted the electronics in the living room
  
• Made the bed
• Put away all the clean laundry and picked up dirty laundry from the bedroom floor
• Febreezed the living room carpet
• Lit 2 candles
• Filed about 20 "explanation of benefits" letters from mine and Aharon's countless trips to various doctors over the last 6 weeks

Tiny apartments ROCK!

Kill me now.

I found out last night that my class that starts this week - my very first class of my senior year of college, my very first 400 level class - is being taught by a professor I've already had.

We had to write a group research paper the last time I had her. We have to do that again this semester. My group would have gotten a perfect score, except that we lost a full letter grade for word usage. Not incorrect words. Not inappropriate words. Just words that had a better substitute. Like we used "show" instead of "demonstrate" and "teach" instead of "instruct." Is that legal?

So now, on top of working earlier, driving to Royal Oak twice a week, and the uncomfortableness that is my physical therapy, I'll be going through the next 8 weeks worrying about my word usage!

Ugh.

I am now in physical therapy two times a week. I'm not sure I'm comfortable talking about why I'm in physical therapy on the Internet, so I'm not going to. But if you personally want to know, I'm okay with sharing the gruesome details. Long story short, after my first appointment yesterday - which was mostly to meet my therapist and get a feel for how this is all going to work - I found out that not only will this correct the problem that I originally started seeking treatment for, but it will also correct 2 problems I've had my entire life and never connected to this issue as well as 1 more recent problem that I also never connected. So basically, in 6 to 8 weeks time, I'll be cured of 4 unpleasant problems!

Anyway, because of the rarity of this particular treatment, there are only 3 physical therapists who treat it within a 4 hour drive of my house. All 3 of them are at Beaumont Health Center in Royal Oak. Royal Oak!!

So, on Mondays and Wednesdays I have to go in to work at 7 a.m. so that I can leave at 3:30 and drive down to Royal Oak. My appointment is at 5 and I'm out of there at 6. If traffic is decent, I get home around 7 or 7:15 p.m. I then have to make and eat dinner and do homework.

Why can't Aharon make dinner? Because he's currently working until 8 p.m. every weeknight.

To make my life easier, I've had to sort of plan out dinners ahead of time. I used to just throw together whatever was around because it didn't matter if dinner took an hour or two to make. But there's no way we can eat dinner at 9 or 10 p.m. Especially when I have to be up the next morning by 7 at the latest.

One of the perks of both of us working in the hunting industry despite the fact that neither of us hunt is that my freezer has about 15 pounds of ground venison in it. I checked out some venison-specific recipes online, and none of them sounded that awesome. So I'm making my own dinners using the venison as a substitute for ground beef.

Here's my meal plan for now:

Tuesday, August 25: chicken and rice casserole
Wednesday, August 26 (Wipeout night!): fajita style chicken with fried jasmine rice and onions
Thursday, August 27: spaghetti with venison meatballs
Friday, August 28: BBQ venison (Also, I need to make 6 loaves of banana bread for people at work who are giving us even more venison!)
Saturday, August 29: baked salami bagels for lunch; Clare and Jamie's wedding for dinner (hahaha, that sounds funny!)

Sunday, August 30: teriyaki chicken stir fry for lunch; brinner (breakfast for dinner. in this case, scrambled eggs, bacon, and pancakes)
Monday, August 31: Pork Roast and mashed potatoes
Tuesday, September 1: sloppy venison joes and baked potato chunks
Wednesday, September 2 (Wipeout night!): venison dogs (chili dogs but it's left over sloppy venison joe mix, thus venison dogs) and left over baked potato chunks
Thursday, September 3: New York Strip Steak and scalloped potatoes
Friday, September 4: Cheeseburgers and corn on the cob
Saturday, September 5: Pig Roast at Nick's!

Higher Education is funny

Aharon's at home with a totally spazzing back. I'm not sure what he did, but the guy almost always has back pain, but I've never seen him in quite as much pain as he was in this morning. Luckily, work for him today was kind of optional. And even more luckily, his health insurance card arrived on Thursday. So he's home until around 2 and then he's going to the doctor...for like the first time in years with the exception of when he burned all the skin off his elbow last winter.

Anyway, I'm sitting at work right now with a pot of coffee and a 20 ounce bottle of coke. The coffee is to warm me up and wake me up, since it's freezing in this building. I also didn't sleep well all weekend thanks to being home alone most of Friday (Aharon was at a bachelor party until 5:30 am), a huge thunderstorm Saturday night (we're talking constant lightening and thunder from about midnight until around 4 am), and a small thunderstorm Sunday night coupled with Aharon flopping around trying to get comfortable despite all the pain he was in.
The coke (I normally drink diet) is to hopefully settle my stomach, which is full of unhappiness that should have been gone by now. (TMI: birth control. Doctor said it would take 3 months to really feel the effects. I'm going on 4 months and do not feel any better.)

But the point of my post is really this: college and why people hate me/I hate myself.

I had a class that started one week before my wedding. Stress management, ironically enough. Right away I found out I had to do a book report (because apparently senior in college equals fifth grade) and write a paper about past experiences with stressful times. The paper was due while I was on my honeymoon, so I sat down right away and did it. I can't say I put a lot of effort into it. I got a perfect score on it.

So I slacked a little. I went on my honeymoon. I came home and picked up my book for my report from the library. It sat untouched on my kitchen table for about 3 weeks. Then I realized I had two weeks to do the four-page paper. I read the first 3 pages of the book and then set it aside.

One week later, I read about nine random pages, then set out to write the report. I spend about twenty minutes writing it on Monday, and then about 15 minutes finishing it up on Tuesday. Including reading time, I probably put about 2 hours into the entire project. Aharon was upset with me for not taking school seriously. (I never have, though. He knew this before the wedding!) I told him that the wedding made me slack and that I'd do better next semester.

I got my paper back Saturday night.

I got a 100%.

Aharon = furious.
Sarah = a little disappointed that I was basically rewarded for being the biggest slacker-who-is-still-a-straight-A-student in the history of the school.

I want to get a degree. I want to learn. I just don't want to do homework or learn about stress or read books.

It's not my fault that school comes naturally to me. Ask my mom, if I would have put even a slight effort into high school, I easily could have been top of my class. Instead I slacked off and graduated fourth. I was thrilled about that, but I knew I could have done better.

I guess I just don't have any motivation.

That's why I want to go to law school. I think it's the one thing that would actually provide a challenge to me and be interesting at the same time! I may actually put some effort into law school. 'May' being the key word, here, though. Because after I graduated magna cum laude and not summa cum laude when I earned my Associates, I said I would actually apply myself at Siena. That clearly hasn't happened.

Cold?

I would just like to say that never once during the winter did I say anything about wanting it to be warm outside, being anxious for summer to get here, or anything else like that.

So I feel that I have no problem saying this:

1. I hate summer.
2. I can not wait until winter.
3. Fall is okay, but the allergens are pretty bad. The cool weather is nice, though.
4. Is it winter yet?
5. How much longer until winter?

Married Life

I am the biggest slacker in the world. It's been like a month and a half since I posted anything. So, here goes.

As you all know, Aharon and I got married on July 3rd. Things have been great ever since, although adjusting to my new life has been interesting. I used to stay up late - until around 11:30 or midnight, and then roll out of bed at 7 a.m. and make it to work at 8. After work, I'd spend a little time with Aharon, do some homework, watch some tv, and eventually go to sleep. Now, my days are more like this.

5:15 a.m. - Wake up. Get Aharon up. Make breakfast, coffee, and pack lunches.
5:50 a.m. - Kiss Aharon goodbye. Go back to bed, even though I know I should play Wii Fit or do some homework or clean the bathroom.
7:15 a.m. - Wake up again. Get dressed. Grab my lunch. Go to work.
4:40 p.m. - Arrive home from work. It's a 50/50 chance that Aharon has been home since 4 or won't be home until 5 or 6. Regardless, I start dinner.
5:30 or 6:00 p.m. - Eat dinner. Clean up. Wash dishes.
7:00 p.m. - School.
9:00 p.m. - Watch an hour of TV and/or clean something.
10/10:30/11:00 p.m. - Bed

So that's what I've been doing for two and half weeks right now. Married life is great but I need more sleep!! Also that going back to bed thing is probably killing me.

Liana

I have a niece! (Well, on July 3rd I will have a niece, but I don't freaking care, she's my niece now!)

Sharaya (Aharon's little sister) had her baby! Liana June Marie Roach was born Monday, June 15th at 2:26 p.m. She was 9 pounds, 6 ounces, and 21.5 inches long. (She's exactly one day old!)

Although Sharaya and I did not always have a good relationship, I have been working hard since about February to try and fix that. Yes, I was in her wedding, but I still wouldn't have considered us close at that time. It really wasn't until February when it basically hit me that she was going to have that baby and that she would then be my niece. I was going to have a niece. I did my best to try and make things right with Sharaya. Unfortunately, I can't go back in time to when we met five years ago and be her friend then. Although if I could, things may not be like they are today and I wouldn't want to lose that.

I always knew that I wanted to be as close as possible for the birth, but I never thought Sharaya would want me right there. (I'm not even sure if she knew what she wanted to do until it was time!) I did my best to be available for her over the last few weeks, and on Sunday when she headed to the hospital, I headed up too. She did not end up having the baby that night, and I went home. Maybe I should have stayed, but I didn't. She was set to be induced at 6 a.m. Monday morning, and I arrived in her room at 5:55 a.m. on Monday morning. We were in that room all day. We had hoped for a baby by noon, but she wasn't ready. At 2 p.m., it was time to start pushing.

Sharaya and I had talked a little during the day about me being in the room. I kind of wanted to, but I have a weak stomach for smells (but nothing else) and wasn't sure I'd be of any help. But I'm also good with being rock solid emotionless when necessary. When the nurse needed somebody to hold a leg, Sharaya said I could do it, so I did.

And let me just end with this, when Liana was born, the amazing feeling that followed is truly unforgettable. I've always wondered how parents always say they loved the baby so much more when it was born. I've never understood that. Sure, it's your kid, but it just got here. Let its personality grow on you a little. But nope. You don't have to. It just hits you like that. And I'm not even the parent, just an aunt. I can't imagine what it will feel like when it's my own kid.

Sharaya, thank you for allowing me to experience something so amazing with you, Jeremy, and Liana.