Sick sick sick

The past three weeks I have been sneezing.  No biggie.  Actually somewhat unusual for me.  I have lived my life with sinus issues (thanks mom and dad!) and they generally manifest themselves somewhat further back in my head.  Recently everything has been up front in my nose- hence the trigger to sneeze.  But I felt fine.

Friday night that suddenly changed.  It was a gorgeous day (50 degrees = tropical madness) and I got out of the hospital before 6:00p (miracle of miracles!!) and celebrated by taking Luna up to the park.  I came back, sat on the couch, and suddenly realized that everything that had been happening in my nose was now settling into its proper home: my sinuses.  Not.  Good.

Enter Saturday.  Saturday I am definitely feeling more and more sinusy.  I sort of just want to lie down because clearly my sinuses have been draining all night and now my ears and throat hurt.  But we were too busy on St. Patrick's Day to actually celebrate (we ordered pizza) and Andrew really wanted to have people over and make some corned beef on his one day off.  So we cleaned the house (well, Andrew cleaned and I picked some things up and then had to sit down for a while).  And I begged Andrew to make the Irish Soda Bread for fear that my sinuses would be contagious and I would enviral the delicious buttery goodness of the bread.

Chris and Dave came over (and later, Chance and Chance's twin brother and Laura joined us) and we partook of fattening traditional foods.  And it was good.  And we watched Iron Chef America and then started a marathon of Ghost Adventures (when Andrew discovered what I had turned the channel to, he actually almost fell over because he was rolling his eyes so hard).  And although I was still not at my full game, I was ok.

And then I suddenly realized that I was feeling much much worse.  Much worse.  And every single joint ached.  Including my hips.  And since I had to get up and go to the bathroom anyway (in Soviet Russia, fluids force you!) I went ahead and took my temperature just for kicks.

99.1

Not an impressive temperature per say.  Except that I haven't actually had a fever since Jr. High.  Whenever I feel like I might be feverish, the thermometer usually tells me I am actually in the 97 range.  Very frustrating in High School by the way.  So this is an honest to God fever in my world.  And enough to make me feel like death warmed over and then smeared with poo.  And then punched in the face.

So today I am going to recoup and hopefully not have to take a sick day tomorrow.  Wish me luck.

Huge Nerds

I am not afraid to admit that I am a huge nerd.  I married a huge nerd, my family is a family of nerds, and most of my friends are afflicted with nerdiness in one way or another.

And so it should come as no surprise that tonight we engaged in that most nerdly of pursuits: Dungeons and Dragons.  Er...technically, we played Pathfinder (a new system that is essentially an improvement on D&D 3.5...some just call it 3.75).  Not sure if that makes it less nerdy, or more so.

In any case, Andrew was our fearless leader and managed to whip up a quick adventure for us in very short order while we spent waaayy too long updating our characters from the last adventure (or making a new one in my case- I wanted to try a ranger).

I won't do a play by play, but I WILL say that we somehow managed to avoid some hurdles set up by Andrew almost entirely, and that we kicked the crap out of some monsters far more easily than a party of our size and level should have managed.  Mostly through blind luck.  We even killed one of the most dangerous, evil, and ancient beings on the planet through judicious use of fire, dolphins, and gravity.

But let's face it, this entire blog post is merely an excuse to post a picture of one of the monsters from tonight. Who we walloped in good order.  Keep in mind that he may LOOK cute and cuddly, but he reduced my Badger (Booger) to 0 hit points in one blow.

(Actually an Earth Elemental.  Big and scary.)

What an excellent weekend!

Things started out slow on Saturday- we slept in a bit and lazed around. Watched part of Goblet of Fire and spent a little time wandering through TriState and being depressed because we're poor. But then that evening we went to Mark's house where he and Sara cooked up some wonderfully authentic pad thai (yummmmm) and introduced us to Killer Bunnies (which Sara won at, but I did fairly well, I think...for a beginner).

Sunday was even better! We went to Boyer Park with a whole bunch of friends. We actually went with Kim (my big sib) and several other 4th years, significant others, and some new first year roommates. Then my other big sib, Joe, and his girlfriend happened to come by the park as well! Also at the park where several of my classmates and friends, a few second years, and a bunch of vet students visiting from Nihon University in Japan. I think I can safely say we all had a lot of fun. We played in the water and got a bit sunburned. Luna learned to swim (it took her a while to master the use of her back legs to swim and not just her front legs. Also took a while for her to figure out how to not breathe with her mouth and choke on the water as she swam. But once she got it worked out she swam all over the place like a little otter). You could always hear her coming towards you in the water because she was "panting" through her nose- a great "Poof-Poof-Poof" as she swam.

Once we got back to Pullman (for those not in the know, Boyer Park is on the Snake River about 25 miles out of P-town) we had a small pot luck dinner of barbequed chicken (with homemade BBQ sauce!), corn bread (made by Whitney), corn on the cob (provided by Ashley), and cookies (also Ashley). We watched the first half of Fellowship of the Ring with cast commentary. Everyone made fun of Orlando Bloom and Sean Astin but I think (hope) everyone had fun. Who doesn't love listening to the comments made by Billy Boyd and Dominic Monahan? There definitely was some good laughter whenever they started talking! But in any case, dinner was FABULOUS.



It was a very good weekend indeed.

TA DAAA!

Sorry to all of my loyal readers (hi mom!) for the long dry spell.
Last semester was pretty hellish. A lot of dark days in Andrea's psyche. A lot more random breakdowns, crying fits, and panic attacks (yes mom and dad, they are back. It's ok, I know what they are and how to handle them now). I made it through with pretty high test scores all around which is nice. It is good to see studying pay off. Sometimes during Anatomy last year I felt like I could study all damn day and not raise my average test grade a bit. That's a little discouraging. But last semester had a lot of really interesting classes and no formaldehyde exposure. Yay!

This semester is a bit easier so far. I have had one take home test, am working on another, have a test tomorrow and another on Thursday. So we'll see how it all goes.

As for life outside of school, the cats are doing just fine. Jasper is growing and is still a little monkey. Talen has had some ugly bouts of acne but is clear right now. Luna has stopped growing and we have purchased a backpack for her to start training her to be a trail puppy. She is a lot of fun in our house, such a sweet girl! Although a bit destructive. There are some holes worn in our linoleum(before we got there) and Luna found one and expanded it. Possibly we will be redoing the floors at some point...Andrew is looking forward to a man-trip soon with several vet school husbands (another reason that we got Luna's backpack now) and we are spending a lot of time with another couple- Chris and Ashley. They are a lot of fun! Good game nights and good food...excellent. Plus man time for Andrew :)

We spent the first part of today outside in the sunshine. What were we doing? Well, I for one was procrastinating the studying for tomorrow's test. But also, we were starting our garden! We cut the boundaries and started pulling up the sod. Tough work, but I resisted the temptation to rent a sod cutter. The shovels and hoe are doing fine. Plus there is something extremely satisfying about pulling up huge chunks of grass with the claw. I did give in and we took a quick trip to get a wheel barrow. I was hoping to get by without it, but it was soooo much easier hauling the little chunks of sod to the compost pile all in a wheel barrow than two handfuls at a time. We got a good start! But are done for the moment so I can work on Parasitology (right after I finish my blog :P) We have big plans for the garden. My big sib, Kim, said they had a 5x5 garden plot that kept them and several friends rolling in veggies...and our garden is considerably larger than that. I need to order my seeds soon so I can get them started indoors and get them outside just as soon as the freezing is over! I am so excited to be able to go outside and cut myself a salad for dinner!

Although we will need to build a fence covering the entire thing because there is a pretty significant deer population here. Three of them ran past our yard while we were out there, and I saw a herd of about 7-8 once when I was up very early. Stay back from my lettuce!