updates

My digestive system: Recovery in progress. I've been feeling mostly better since late yesterday afternoon. Now my stomach only hurts for a couple hours after I eat. Could be worse. Hopefully I'll be fully recovered tomorrow, Alfred said he's going to make me suffer at the gym. I can't wait.

My burn: Still disgusting. I can see that it's healing, but it's taking it's sweet time. It probably doesn't help that the scab keeps cracking and then starts oozing and bleeding again. Last night I put a band aid on it so I wouldn't bump it and pull the scab off in my sleep. Instead, the whole scab peeled off when I took off the band aid this morning. I'm sure this particular storyline is very enjoyable for all.

My azaleas: Not dead yet! My in laws brought us 2 more plants when they came over for dinner a couple weekends ago, and I planted them next to the first one. Then before she left my mom raked and weeded all around them to give them some space to breathe. They look good! Well, the one on the right looked a little droopy last night, hopefully it just needed some water (which I gave it). Aren't they cute?


It's a little hard to see, but all the white splotches on the ground toward the bottom of the picture is bird crap from the herons that nest on our property. You should see our roof. Or right next to where Katie parks her car. They're disgusting creatures. And annoying: they kept screaming and waking me up the other night. And apparently not very bright, since they're nesting in our yard again.

blech

I think I have a stomach virus. I started having a stomach ache yesterday a little before lunch. I thought I was just hungry, but it started getting worse about an hour after I ate. Then I started getting chills and feeling nauseous. I was miserable the rest of the day at work. As soon as we got home I just laid in bed for awhile, then spent the rest of the night on the couch, trying to get comfortable. Besides my stomach ache, my lower back was really hurting for some reason, so I kept moving around and adjusting pillows and blankets to try to minimize the pain. I didn't get much sleep; I kept tossing and turning, and when I did fall asleep I would have hallucinating dreams about websites about missing children and bread recipes. Very weird, and not very restful.

I feel a little better today. If I was at maybe 50% yesterday, I'm up to maybe 70% today. I ate a little oatmeal and had some juice for breakfast, which hurt but was probably good for me. It also meant I was able to take an aleve, so my back feels better. And at least I'm just sitting all day, whenever I stand up I get nauseous. But hey, at least I was down a couple pounds this morning! :)

Oh yeah, and my friend had her baby yesterday - it's a boy!

not much to report

One of the girls in my book club is in labor! She's the first one due in a string of about 7 or 8, one's due every few weeks from May to October. She's actually 3 weeks early, so hopefully everything goes fine. There were 4 babies born in the group this winter, now with the new crop starting our meetings should be pretty lively! Luckily there's a few of us staying "strong till 2009" so I'm not the only one getting my baby fix whenever we meet.

Anyway... Ellery got an early birthday present the other day, so he gave us a ride around the driveway last night. Door to door service. Pretty sweet, huh? Alfred wants one, of course. But I don't have a car, or a computer, so I think I get the next toy, right?

Slow blog day here. So go look at this website I found yesterday. It's funny. This is my favorite one.

more domesticity

Apparently we couldn't slow back down to our usual leisurely weekend pace after all the excitement of the past couple weeks. Saturday we hit up the farmers market, ran some errands, I cleaned, baked some bread (which didn't rise because I killed the yeast by using water that was too hot), we went for a nice long walk (which resulted in me being sore the rest of the weekend), and got started on some apple butter. Sunday we finished the apple butter (which turned out really well), made some strawberry orange jam (early taste tests indicate success), spent almost 2 hours trying to boil water to seal all those jars of deliciousness, went to the beach, baked some rolls for dinner, and caught up on the last 2 or so weeks of tv. Craziness. A good weekend overall though, and having an extra day off didn't hurt either. I'd have more pictures, but our camera battery died this weekend and the charger and spare were both at the office in the computer case I used as a carry on to go to Minnesota, and I forgot to get the pictures Katie took. My bad.

Completely unrelated... have I ever mentioned my inability to stay awake for our drive to work? Probably twice a week I fall asleep during our morning drive. Today, for example, I passed out for about 15 minutes. It's a nice little nap, but sometimes (like this morning) I end up kind of disoriented and more tired when I wake up. Luckily the AC in our building is fixed, so the cold jolts me back into reality pretty quickly. Until the hypothermia sets in, then I'm out again.

day off

No post yesterday because I took the day off! It was my parents' last day here so I played hooky. But first, some pictures of mom's birthday cheesecake. Decoration courtesy of Katie.


The bottom layer is brownie, then a layer of caramel, then a layer of cheesecake. It was gooey and delicious. Luckily we ate most of it already, so there's not much more for me to gorge myself on.


Yesterday we went to Fort Matanzas, which I'd never been to but wanted to go to. I didn't realize it was free, so that was cool. Then afterwards we went to the beach. It was much nicer than last weekend when we tried to go to the beach; then we left after only an hour because it was so cold. We were there for maybe 3 1/2 hours yesterday. I got a little sunburned. I had Katie do sunscreen on my left arm so I didn't have to get sunscreen on my burn wound, and she missed a little patch on my shoulder. You like how I sell her out? I also missed a little spot on the backs of both knees. So that'll be fun until it fades.

Speaking of my burn, the blister popped the other night when I was washing dishes, and it oozed for the next 24 hours. It seems like it's finally dried out this morning and maybe starting to heal now. It still looks disgusting and hurts. I have a band aid tan line on that finger.

We also went out to dinner last night. We walked to the restaurant, so Alfred, Katie, and I each brought along a beer for the road (which my parents did not know until right now). I then burst into the men's room accidentally. Apparently since we've been to that restaurant last, they switched the men's and women's restrooms. Totally not my fault. There was a guy at the urinal, but he had his back to me so he didn't see me, and there was no one else in line at that point. Still pretty embarrassing.

happy birthday mom!

Today's my mom's birthday. I'm guessing she didn't notice the link to this blog in the email I put it in, so she never comes here, which is good because she probably wouldn't like this picture. It's from Christmas last year, we all smoked out of the hookah together. It was a good old fashioned family Christmas. How old is she? Old enough to have a 27 year old daughter, that's how old!

I was making her birthday cheesecake last night (pictures will be here tomorrow, of course) and I burned my finger on the oven rack. Stupid. It blew up into a gross looking blister and hurt like a little bitch. It doesn't hurt this morning, but it's still nasty looking. I'll spare you a picture of that. For now. At least the burn is on my middle finger - middle finger injuries are kind of fun, as far as injuries go.

Also worthy to report: my dad caught a crab this morning! He's been going fishing off (what's left of) our dock every morning and hasn't been having much luck, he caught this little guy today though. I thought it was neat.

By the way, do you like my new banner at the top of the page?? I made it myself :)

thumbs up, say the astronauts

We heard back from the Army Corp yesterday - he's going to give us a permit! This is fantastic - he's the guy who we weren't sure was going to approve us, so this was a big hurdle to jump. There's still some legal stuff we have to take care of for him and for DEP, but it looks like we're going to be able to build where we want to! Now it's just a matter of time until we have all of the details taken care of and can actually start building. Alfred still thinks we won't be able to start until July, but at least we can do it! Definitely a weight lifted.