False Alarm

(Ahh, the infamous hospital pic. Laugh it up folks, laugh it up.)

Soooo, 8 years ago, before my 19th birthday, I woke up one day with a swollen leg. It was a blood clot... or DVT (Deep vein thrombosis to be technical). There was no rhyme or reason for it, no disorders, no good reason at all. It was a pretty trying time for me. I was living in Fort Collins, CO, the first time on my own and I had no insurance to boot. Luckily, lots of wonderful friends and work associates took the utmost care of me.

Needless to say, I'm always on the lookout for anything that might be wrong, or signs of another one. My leg (the same one as before) has been kind of swollen and in & out of pain for about a week. Normally, I might get a little swelling, but I can usually attribute it to some kind of stress (working out, sitting for too long, standing too long, yada yada). I might even get a little pain from that swelling, but I always know its because of my jacked-up veins. This time it was different. More..consistent/persistent I'd say. It actually made me worry. Quite a bit.

I left work about 3pm today and headed to the hospital. Check in, the man says "what're you here for?" I say, "I think I might have a blood clot." Lame. Anyway, I had to go and answer all of his questions, get my little wrist band, and put up with the witchy (<-putting it nicely) triage nurse, then got whisked away in a wheelchair to my room/bed. Doc came in and ordered the blood test and ultra-sound. The phlebotomist missed my vein and it hurt. The ultra sound was fine, lots of goop. 30 minutes later (side note! we passed the time by starting two new books both by Ken Follett: Pillars of the Earth and Fall of Giants- I hear both are super good) the doc struts in and says I'm just fine.

Whew! No cumiden for life on this day! False alarm. I did get to see on screen the scars in my veins from the old one though. So, I guess that's cool. And I am going to sleep really good tonight. ;)

What the?! Is that the SUN?

Oh Yeah baby! This weekend we had sun! And did we take advantage of that? 'Course we did! What Oregonian didn't? Seriously, everyone was out. And so we took a little drive to one of our favorite spots, Ankenny (one of the Finley Park Nature Reserves). Boy oh boy- those birds were out in numbers. We went for nice walk and ran into other nature watchers (we just happened to ALL be breaking the rules, going past a fence to get some extra views). That sums that up.

ANYWAY....the rest of the weekend was just us. Hanging out, being dweebs(<-- hahaha, remember that...dweebs? Haven't used that word in a while). When you're married with no kids, you kind of run out of stuff to do sometimes, but not us!

Behold: GLOW STICK PHOTOS!

And that's what boredom+digital camera+glow sticks from the Dollar Store will get you folks! One night of seriously fun, goofy picture taking! Good times, good times. But really- they are kinda cool huh?

Well, dinner (homemade pizza) is awaiting. That's my exit.

But first, check out this video- and make sure you have the sound on. Greggors caught it on his phone on our little nature walk. Lots and lots of birds!

On a drive on a rainy day....

Sunday, Greg and I did go for a drive. It was quite relaxing. Rainy. But there were some really pretty clouds and I even felt inspired to snap a few pics. That is what you see here. For some reason that day, I felt like dressing up, and donned my most favorite heeled booties, holey jeans, black shirt, and a beret. It must have been quite the site standing on the side of the road, in the rain, taking photos as the sun was setting. You couldn't even tell there was a sun that day though!
Some rainy days are just fine with me. I love to watch the huge clouds rolling over the valley, the sounds rain can make on the roof, the puddles and unexpected lakes that appear from the unrelenting rain. Some days, I love that I can stay in and watch 24 all day and night, or movies, and not feel guilty about it because, hey, it's raining outside!
Today is not rainy- yet, but very cloudy. Grey. I'm kind of sick of grey. Only 6 more months to go for sunshine! I'm counting down.

At least the grey can make some really beautiful images...well, at least beautiful to me.

Rainy Day

Today is a very rainy day. I woke up wishing it was a day like the picture above. I wanted to be outside, soaking up the sun. Maybe go on a picnic and a hike. Or something of that nature. But it will be a few months (if lucky) before we get that kind of weather again.

So, on this rainy day, we went to see a movie. Naturally. What else is there to do? Especially when trying to avoid the chores awaiting at home. We went to see the latest Harry Potter. Pretty dang good. Can't wait for the next one to come out. Wish we didn't have to wait a whole year for it, but, such is life. Before the movie,We had lunch at Market of Choice. That place still blows me away. The deli is a mile long, and it always takes me at least 10 minutes to decide what to eat. We landed on a huge roast beef sandwich on Ciabatta bread. It was delicious! Then, we did a little thrifting and I found a great deal on some fun scrapbooking paper. Not that I do any scrapbooking, but I do like to make stuff with such cool patterns and colors. It was a pretty good day, despite all the rain.

Tomorrow, we might go for a drive or something. Search for some sunshine! (yeah, probably that won't be too likely, but I can dream) But even if we can't find any, I'm sure we'll have a lovely day, just like today.

Before I go, I was going through some old photos I had, and stumbled upon this one of my sister, Kristi. I edited it a bit, and really like it. Miss ya sis.

2010 Wrap UP

It's gone. 2010 is gone. Happy New Year! Oh thank heaven for 2011. Isn't that how it goes? Ok, well, here are some photos of happenings. This covers the last two months, including visiting with some very special peoples! Happy New Year everyone!

I hope it is fantastic, joyful, prosperous and filled with love.

November here was gorgeous!

Silver Falls

Diane and Geoff came to visit us in November. It was a blast!

We took them to Silver Falls- it was beautiful. We even got some sunshine!

Greg and I learned how to make sushi. Easy peasy japaneesy.

All of a sudden Christmas was upon us. We decorated with what we had. Not much, but we felt the Christmas spirit anyway.

We gifted ourselves The White Stripes on LP, and got another one from J & K. Sweeet!

Here is Greg and I with my Mom's side of the family after brunch on Christmas morning. Yup! We got to go visit the family(ies) in AZ for Christmas. I didn't take my camera anywhere with me. So, not a lot of photos this trip. But we had an AMAZING time and were so happy to see everyone we were able to. Of course, we never have enough time to visit everyone :(, but hopefully next time we're there we can make some more rounds. We really need to take longer trips.

To end, here is a video of me hitting the Gong at the MIM (Musical Instrument Museum) in north Scottsdale. I highly recommend any music enthusiast going to check it out. By the way- hitting a gong on a daily basis would be very fun. You can't imagine the vibration that thing gives off, and I barely hit it!!