Yes. I'm a geek.

And this is a major geek moment for me.

Stan Lee ditched "Parthenon" tonight. WTF? Why not "Hygiena" the 40-something OCD in a maid's uniform for a costume? Or how about the over-zealous cop- he's not even TRYING to be a superhero! There are officially NO decent contestants left.

Stan Lee- YOU SUCK.

Each misfortune you encounter will carry in it the seed of tomorrow's good luck.

The title is a quote from Og Mandino.

Well yesterday sucked, but today was awesome. I got to sleep in, but not too late. There was a cancellation at the massage place so I got in at the last minute at a discount! Since my massage was over on Sawmill, I stopped at Whole Foods and got lots of tasty stuff. Their fruit is always amazing and the fish is really fresh, the whole store is just awesome!

When I got home I fixed up the asparagus I bought with a tiny bit of olive oil, salt, pepper, and slivered fresh garlic. I roasted the asparagus on the grill while I grilled the salmon on a cedar plank. It was soooo good and really low fat so it didn't make me sick. For dessert I had some honeydew (again from Whole Foods) that was sooooo sweet. I also got pineapple, Woo City mango sorbet, Orangina, and just a few Pure Imagination chocolates (I hear they're amazing, but they were $1.29 per piece!!!) but I also made a pit-stop in the homeopathic remedies section

The homeopathic stuff isn't usually my cup of tea, but there is a lot to say for "natural" remedies I guess. Last night I watched "Crazy, Sexy Cancer" on.... I think it was Discovery Health. The main person in the show was a girl in her twenties who was diagnosed with a terminal cancer and it was already stage for. Stage 5 is death. Anyhow, since there isn't any effective treatment for the cancer she has the doctors didn't want to pump her full of chemo and stuff. They figured it wouldn't do much for her and it would make her miserable. She was really frustrated because the doctors just wanted her to basically sit and wait, so she started looking into alternative medicine. First she tried a probiotic diet that was really high in grains and really difficult to maintain. The tumors still grew. Next, she met with this doctor who is all about raw foods and believes that ALL disease is caused by excess acid in the body. He did a blood draw and showed her the blood in a microscope pointing out all of the acid crystals in her blood. He said the high grain diet she was doing was causing massive buildups of these acid crystals in her organs which was making her sicker. She changed her diet, cut out all the grains and meats, and started eating nothing but veggies. Now who knows if this was a coincidence, but her tumors stopped in their tracks. She's not technically in remission because the tumors are still there, but the cancer just kind of stopped. She wasn't sick anymore, the tumors weren't growing.... the doctors were amazed!

That was a long explanation.... anyhow- if this homeopathic stuff friggin stopped her cancer, maybe some of it could help me right? I ended up buying 2 tubes of this "Boiron Blue" stuff. One is for headaches with dizziness and the other for indigestion with nausea. They're cute little dispensers that dispense these little white pellets that are "micro-doses of mineral, botanical, and biological substances." I had a headache a little while ago so I took the headache one as directed and my headache was actually gone like 15 minutes later. I didn't think it would do anything, but it apparently did. I'm OK with that, so I'll try it again next time and see if this was just a fluke. They might make a believer out of me yet.

A healthy body and soul come from an unencumbered mind and body.

The title is a quote from someone named Ymber Delecto.

"Unencumbered body" ....Does that mean I just need to stop wearing clothes and I'll feel better?

Today was not a good day. I woke up way too tired. I got up, ate my morning frozen fruit, got my shower, and went to work. I had to take the cat to work with me for her check-up and vaccines.... she threw-up in the car on the way there. I knew that stuff did not bode well for the rest of my day.

My stomach started acting up at work... usually I'll drink my whole Ensure and some pretzels during my shift, but today I couldn't even get down all of the Ensure. The pretzels sat a little better, but not much. After I got home I busted out my "when all else fails" food- beef jerky. That actually helped a little. I drank some Gatoraide and munched on the jerky for a while, all the while still feeling pretty crappy. Finally I decided that if I was going to feel like shit anyway, I might as well actually eat something that tastes good. I made myself a brat on the grill and I swear it was the most delicious thing I've ever tasted in my entire life. I've barely had the littlest bit of fat to eat since May and my body obviously missed it. So my total food intake for today:
Frozen fruit- 80cal
Half an Ensure- 125cal
Handful of pretzels- maybe 100cal
Beef jerky- 100cal
and my wonderful brat- let's call it 200 even (it was a turkey brat)

That gives me a grand total of 605 calories for the day. Maybe I forgot something so let's call it 800. What a diet eh?

On the upside, I couldn't find my comfy blue jeans yesterday when I was getting ready for the store. I grabbed a pair of khakis from the closet and saw that they were an old pair that I hadn't been able to wear since my sophomore year in college. I thought to myself, what the hell- why not try them on, and sure enough they fit! They freaking fit! As far as numbers go they're the same size, but as any woman will tell you that doesn't mean much. These weren't from some plus-size store either, they were from Learner NY & Co. I can't tell you how awesome that was for me. I can actually shop in a "normal," trendy, mall store!

Advertising is a racket...its constructive contribution to humanity is exactly minus zero.

The title is a quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I would like to apologize for the temporary annoying banner ads on this blog. Blogger gives you an option for AdSense when you're setting up. I accidentally clicked it and *poof* enter annoying banner ads. The only problem was that there wasn't a button to click to make it disappear! After digging though the Blogger help files I finally figured out that the only way to get rid of the damn banners was to go into the template code and delete the script! So, no more ads. Yay =)

Movie Review and other things

No quote this time! Sorry to disappoint!

So, Sunday night I went and saw Superbad. When I saw the previews I thought it was going to be really stupid, but the reviews I saw were all really good. Eric seemed interested in it and there's nothing else out that we want to see, so Superbad it was.

It was freakin awesome! A lot of really stupid humor, a couple train wreck moments, way too many phallic images, but really funny. If you are offended by drawn images of the human penis, this is not the movie for you, that's for sure! I don't want to spoil it for anyone so I won't give much away about the plot. If you were a nerd, outcast, or just plain invisible in HS this movie will really speak to your life experience... only a lot funnier.

That being said, this movie really spoke to my HS experience. My sister was the blonde, popular, cheerleader, party all the time girl. I was the short haired, geeky, band nerd, home alone every weekend girl. I never did get invited to one of those crazy drinking parties high-schoolers do so well. I had like 2 friends and we hung out and watched movies or went bowling. I think I spend more time on the computer or in a book than I did with other human beings for those 4 years.... Wait- things haven't changed much there!

Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.

....And tonight I'm spending it at the movies!
(The title is a quote from Will Rogers.)

I felt like crap pretty much all day today. I had every intention of starting to read that book I bought last week (American Gods) but it didn't happen. I ended up watching TV, google-ing a friend who turned out to be more interesting than I thought, and reading blogs. The dogs drove me absolutely crazy most of the time just to add to things. Toby has developed this very annoying habit of attacking the front window anytime anything wanders near our front yard. Today we had 2 squirrels, a neighbor's dogs, a cat across the street, 3 cars pulling in next door, and some kind of phantom only he could see. Every time Toby went nuts, Brodie had to follow his lead by barking his ever loving head off for a good 15 minutes. The only one behaving was my sweet little Zippie puppy who slept on my lap most of the day.

When Eric got home from teaching lessons, he got me some beef jerky. For some reason it seems to make me feel better when I get to feeling like royal crap. Prolly cause it's the only non-carb I get to eat... Anyhow, I'm feeling better now (mind you still not "normal," just better than the extra crappy I was this morning) so we're going to see Superbad at 8:30. Now that we're on the west side, we've been going to the Rave theater in Polaris. It's a really nice theater- stadium seating, comfy seats, large screens, DHLP, pretty much the works. I highly recommend it if you're around the area.

Sickness comes on horseback but departs on foot.

The title is a Dutch Proverb, sometimes attributed to William C. Hazlitt.

I am sick and tired of being sick and tired!! Here's my situation: This all started about 10 years ago. When I was in 6th grade I developed a persistent, hacking, barking, cough. I went to a bunch of doctors and they determined that I was allergic to the family dog. I went on allergy shots, (which helped) and took anti-histamines (which didn't) but the cough never went away.

Fast forward to this past May... I went to a new allergist to get allergy tested again and he said that I was showing NO allergy to dogs and only a couple very mild allergies to dust and mold. So what's been causing this cough for 10 years? Silent Reflux. Silent. Freaking. Reflux. Not only was it to blame for my cough, but probably the sore throats and ear infections I've suffered with since I was a small child. Domino effect- because of the frequent ear infections I was put on an antibiotic that was recently linked to the malformation of adult teeth. AKA this silent reflux is ALSO to blame for all of my broken & cracked teeth.

Armed with my newfound ailment, I went to my family doctor who prescribed Nexium to ditch the reflux and heal any damage it might have done. My cough disappeared almost immediately, but I was still refluxing. Not like minor take a Tums and get over it reflux either. The one day I was watching TV and got a tickle in my throat. The combination of my reflux + my cough caused the contents of my stomach to spontaneously erupt onto my chest. Then a few weeks later I got _really_ sick in the morning before work. I was in so much pain that I went to the hospital. We thought it might be an ulcer so I stopped eating anything acidic or non ulcer friendly. Obviously something wasn't working so I made an appointment with my doctor again. The morning of my appointment I wasn't feeling very well, but that was getting to be pretty common. As the appointment went on I got sicker and sicker until I was crying and the doctor was a little disturbed. He called my husband and had him take me directly to the hospital. Of course the hospital does NOTHING except give me pain killers and send me home.

Next step, the doctor sets up an appointment for me to have an EGD. (They stick a camera down your throat into your stomach to look for ulcers.) This went fine and they didn't find anything- no ulcer, not even any real irritation. OK, so what next? While I had been avoiding acidic foods I was eating a lot of milk, cream, and other fatty foods which would implicate my gall bladder. At the hospital they had already done an ultrasound so it couldn't be gall stones.

Now we're up to the beginning of August and the more interesting problems.... The doctor set me up for a HIDA scan to test my gall bladder function and check for disease. I reported to the hospital and the wait was a bit longer than I expected. When I finally get called back, the tech tells me that the long wait was because they had to call my doctor to clarify his orders. Apparently he wrote out the order for the HIDA scan but forgot to ad the 2 letters that indicate the second part of the test which tests the function. The tech figured it was a mistake and called the doctor's office where the staff told the hospital that the doctor said to do the test as written, without the second part. I was a little confused by this, but that's what the doctor said so we went on with it. When I got home I started to double think myself and decided to e-mail my doctor to make sure that's what was supposed to happen. Apparently no one in his office had talked to him after all, it WAS a mistake, and I would probably have to repeat the test if these results came back negative. This was the last straw with this doctor (the office staff has screwed up several times, 2 of which were MAJOR screw-ups) so I fired him. Later that week the test results came back. Negative. Great- all that for nothing.

That brings us up to now. I now have no family doctor, but I'm still really sick. I've lost 25lbs because I can't hardly eat anything. I'm always tired and sick to my stomach so we think I'm suffering from malnutrition on top of whatever is wrong with me. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. Soooo.... I tried to call the GI specialist that did my EGD to see if he'll take over my treatment, but his office closes at 4:00pm. What business closes at 4:00pm? Freakin A.... So Monday I'm going to try to call him again, but in the mean time I'm miserable.

Don't get me wrong, I know I've got it better than a ton of people. I could have cancer or some incurable disease like Krohn's (which 2 friends of mine have.) One of the girls I went to HS with developed a (non-cancerous) tumor in her spinal canal. They did surgery and removed it but didn't think she'd walk again. Luckily they were wrong and after a LOT of PAINFUL physical therapy, she's walking again. I'm very glad that I'm not in any of their shoes, but I'm still not enjoying this.

There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes.

The title is another quote from the immortal Doctor Who!

As I left off in my introduction post, we now live in a small rental house. Most of the neighborhood is young families so we're probably the youngest couple on the block. It may not be true home-ownership, but it's a house. My house. For the next 12 months...) I get to paint, decorate, do yard work. It's great! I have to say my favorite part is the washer & dryer. I can do laundry at 3am, I don't have to worry about anyone pissing in the dryer, and I don't have to sit and watch it to keep people from walking off with my clothes. Now that we have this place I can't help but think I'm an adult. It's so weird because I still feel like that nervous 18 year old just away at college. When I visit my parents I have to stop myself from saying or thinking I'm going home for the weekend because that's not home anymore. "My bedroom" is now my parent's guest room and my mom's extra closet.

The first couple times I went "home" it was just weird. Before I got there I figured it would be the same as it had always been. At first it seemed I was right. All of my old stuff was there. The furniture was where I left it, my books were still on the shelf, even my old stuffed animals were there. It was physically the same place, but it seemed liked everything had changed. The rules were all different. You know how you feel unsure of what you should or shouldn't do or say when you're a house guest? That's how I felt, but my mom still expected me to do chores. I felt like a guest at a really rude hotel! As the old saying goes "I guess you never can go home again." After my mom's friend left her husband and moved into my childhood bedroom all illusion of it being "home" left and now it's not so weird when I go to visit.

Back to adulthood... as I said that feels SOOO weird to type. Was there some magical moment when I was transformed into an adult? I don't feel any different. Suddenly I have a house, a job, and bills. I think the weirdest part of being an adult is how much money I spend on stamps! I guess if "home" isn't home anymore, I'll get used to the idea of being an adult sometime. That doesn't mean I have to act like a grown-up all the time though =)

First things first, but not necessarily in that order.

The title is a quote from one of my favorite people- Doctor Who!

Well, I guess I should start out by saying that this is (will be?) my first blogging experience. I apologize in advance.

I'm sure most of the people reading this will be friends, acquaintances, teachers, and other such people who know at least the basics about me; but there's bound to be a couple people who end up here by some random coincidence. It's for the latter that this initial post exists.

I'm currently married to my high school sweetie, Eric. We got married Oct. 21 2006 so I guess that still makes us newlyweds for a couple more months. Nothing here is really spectacular, we're pretty average I guess. We're both in our mid-twenties, fresh out of school, and poor as hell. Eric finished his degree, but I'm taking a "break." AKA I dropped out. We live in a small house, which we rent, with our 3 dogs and 1 cat. We pay too much to rent this place, but I'm just happy to be out of the whole apartment complex situation.

We've had our royal luck with the apartment complexes. While we were in school it was decent- we lived in a really nice apartment complex, but we had 2 other male roomies.... With the wedding coming up we (well, I) decided it'd be a good time to ditch the roomies. Not knowing the Columbus area we ended up with a 3 bedroom apartment and the far east side of the city. Hello ghetto town!!! Within a week our "nice" apartment was falling apart. As if that wasn't bad enough, one night Eric went out to walk the dogs before bed (this is midnight-ish) and sees what he thinks at first is a Hummer. Not a hummer. SWAT armored vehicle. Big difference!! Needless to say I was in a big hurry to get the hell out of there at this point. Long story short- The landlord thought we were stupid. He found out otherwise after he was sited for 11 code violations. He let us break lease =)

From there we moved to the far WEST side into a complex recommended by a friend/co-worker/unhealthy schoolgirl crush of mine. This place really wasn't bad, but the average age was probably mid-twenties. I always feel odd bitching about my own age group but I've really found there there's a major difference between calendar age and maturity. I'm 22, but I'm married, settled down, and pretty much boring. These "kids" living around us were all about the parties, loud music, and drunken stupidity.

All that brings us to now!