Silly puppy

Anyone who has spent more than ten minutes in a room with Sir Winston realizes that he is not lacking in personality. When he was still just a little puppy he had a bad allergic reaction to some of his vaccinations. While we were waiting for him to recover we were only allowed to give him ice cubes to drink. If he drank too much he would get sick and probably throw up even more than he already had. So to limit his drinking we gave him his first ice cube and he loved it from the start. Ice cubes are as precious to him as treats are.

On August 4th, the day before VaRonica's birthday we had a very impressive hail storm. The car ports have an aluminum room, and when anything hard hits it a very distinct sound resinates. When thousands of hail hit the car port, it gets Sir to his feet. I believe that he would have gotten mad at the sound if i didn't let him out onto the balcony. Once he was on the balcony he realized that there were chunks of ice there.

He began to select all of the larger pieces of hail, and brought them inside our apartment. Before i knew what he was doing he had a pile of hail about six inches wide and four inches high. Unfortunately i did not think to take a picture of the pile, but as i was about to throw some out i took a picture to show VaRonica how large the hail was.

The next day on VaRonica's Birthday we bought a new bed mattress. This new mattress is about four inches higher than our last mattress. After we got it set up, and made we invited Sir into the bedroom to see it. I patted the top of the mattress with my hand as i always do when i want him to jump up or get on something. With out looking at the mattress, and just using muscle memory he took a short run and jumped like he always had before. This time ended with his head just clearing the top, and his chest bouncing right off. He landed on the ground and gave me a look that simply said why did that happen. I patted the bed for the second time, and this time he took a few steps and then stopped. He looked at me and i think it was then that he realized that the bed was taller. He whimpered a little, then when i patted the bed again, he took a few quick steps and jumped. This time he did make it, but just barely. His body did not quite make it but with some quick scrambling he was able to haul himself onto the bed.

Usually when Sir jumps onto the bed he is instantly in play mode. He will often spin around and give a playful bark trying to get some attention. After the first time he was able to jump onto the bed, he looked back at me then laid down in the pillows. I believe the scrambling to get himself on, wore himself out. He has been able to jump up onto the bed with less issues, but we do believe that we are going to have to buy some steps, or at least a wood box for him to jump from.

being sick part two

So as many of you know, i have been really sick. And waiting to go see the Dr was not a good idea because it allowed the infection to spread. My body was doing very little to fight it off on its own.

After having finished ten days of a very strong anti-biotic, i was still not feeling good. So i called my Dr to make an appointment on last wednesday. The appointment was scheduled for friday morning, but on thursday morning i received a call from the Dr.'s office. The call was to inform me that my Dr had gone into labor and had a baby... By the way, saw the Doc about two months ago and would not have been able to tell you she was prego.

So i asked to reschedule the the appointment with another Dr for the same time in the same office. Come Friday i got to the Dr.s office, got checked in and waited in the room for the new Dr to asses me. When the Doc came in he took a look at my maroon red shirt that said Montana, and the first thing that he says to me is "why are you wearing a Griz shirt?" Not, hello, how are you, my name is Dr ____.

I told him that Missoula was my home town, and he replies by telling me that he was born in St Pats hospital and couldn't be anymore from Missoula. I also found out that his brother played for the Griz. Weird...

He poked and prodded, and then took me to get me stabbed by the Phlebotomist. After filling six vials with my life source i just relaxed for a little while on the exam table. Let me pause for a moment to say yes six vials! Oh, and i have a little issue with needles and blood, and such stuff.

After having been there for about fifteen minutes i started to get up to go home, and the phlebotomist stopped me and wouldn't let me leave. She said that if i passed out she would get into trouble. I don't know what she was so worried about, i was only shaking a little bit, and i am naturally pale. Half an hour latter i was finally allowed to leave.

The reason they took so much blood was so they could test for several different things. The Doc told me there was about a 5% chance that i had malaria, and wanted to make sure. They did my hemoglobin and hematocrit levels, looked for inflammation markers, checked my ion and iron levels and a few other things. I remember counting all of the tests that they said they were going to do and i believe it was nine different tests.

Monday morning i received a voice mail saying the results for my tests were in and i needed to call them to find out the news. So i called them back and the call was very short. It started out with the nurse saying that i had no signs of infections, malaria, parasites, and anything else. It was good news, but as a side note right before the conversation ended she said, "oh, but you are slightly anemic."

Well i didn't eat hardly any red meat while in Thailand, but i had been taking multi vitamins. I shouldn't have a lack of iron in my blood. I grabbed my vitamin bottle to check the amount of iron in my adult gummy vitamins and found out that they didn't have any iron in them. I felt lied to.

So i got some iron supplements, and some docusate sodium to offset the side effect of the iron. That would be hard stools. So now every morning i am taking two gummy multi vitamins, one iron tablet, and some docusate. I am only 30 and already taking four things every morning. I'm not looking forward to adding anything more to that list.

Hair today and gone tomorrow

It has been a week now and I decided that I should finally post and talk about my hair. I decided a while ago that I was going to donate my hair to locks of love. This is a company that takes hair that is 10 inches or longer hair that is donated and makes wigs for children with different diseases or disorders in which they loose their hair. The wigs are sold at a sliding fee scale to help the kids and families. I have always admired those who live through and struggle with different problems and this is just one little way that I could give to them.

As many of you know I am a huge fan of dying my hair. I do it all the time and usually have so much fun changing the color and style. In order to donate you have to have at least 10 inches and it can't be died lighter than your natural color. So in order to fulfill my wish to donate I had to make a commitment for a year to not dye my hair lighter than my medium brown hair. This might not seem like a big deal to some, but to me it was a bit of a struggle. I also have white hair, I know I shouldn't be old enough to have white hair, but thanks to my dad's genetic coding I do. I got my first white hair at 16 and haven't stopped there. Therefor for the last year I have just be dying my hair the same old dark brown, a little darker than my natural color.

My hair had 3 or 4 colors in it when I got married!

My crazy curly hair in Thailand, this is what happens when m hair meets humidity :)

The day of the big cut

I have been able to stay motivated to keep my hair long too by my trip to Thailand as well as the big donation. I knew that it would be hot and humid in Thailand and therefor I would need to pull it back into a pony tail as much as possible when there. This was yet another reason to keep me going.

Since I have been back from Thailand I have been excited for the big day of the cut. I set it up and did it... here are the pictures for all of you to check out!!!

The first cut, my hair guy Eddie put my hair in 2 ponies to get the most out of the length

It's all gone!

Now for the styling

Final product, 2 colors and short, short, short!

Birthdays

August is the month for Birthdays in my family. There is not one week where we don't have at least one birthday, it is so much fun! In fact Nathan Sir and I are all August babies. I am usually a huge birthday girl and make such a huge deal about everyone knowing that it is coming up. I start count downs and usually enjoy having a party. This year it has been different. I don't know if it is because I am getting old, or if it is just that there has been so much going on this year, but I was so not into it! I did have a good day however. Nathan and I slept in, bought a bed, went out to lunch and then both went to work. I had fun at work, watched a movie and shared cheese cake with my clients, but this is not the typical birthday route that I take. Typically I am working in the morning, if at all, then having fun with family and friends all night and then through the weekend.

I have been lucky enough to spend some of my recent birthdays with Nathan's family in Montana, Flathead Lake to be more specific. They are always so kind to me, ensuring that there are presents and cake. Last year we took a trip to Sapphire Mountain and mined our own sapphires for my big day. Other years I have had big get togethers with my family and friends. I love costume or theme parties so I will include pictures of some of my favorite birthdays.

The first year Nathan and I were dating, m girlfriends had a big party for me, so much fun!

The Bling Bling Birthday Bash a few years back!!!

I didn't get into it this year and I am ok with this, next year will be the big 30 and believe me there will be a great party for this... Any suggestions as to the theme would be great!!! I have a couple of idea's already but would love input.

Lastly it is my father-in law's and Puppy's birthday today!!! Sir doesn't really care about his birthday, he is like Nathan in that respect. Reed (father-in-law) seems to enjoy his more, like me!

A few years ago at Flat Head, the 3 birthday kids on their birthday weekend!

Me and 2 of my adorable nieces right before my birthday this year!

Happy Birthday to all of my August baby friends and family!!!!!

Feeling yucky at Flathead

I am sick... and i have been for about three weeks now.

It started after we attended a Muay Thai fight, where i screamed my voice gone. Two days latter we boarded onto a plain and headed back to the US of A. When we got back to Salt Lake i was dead tired and had cold like symptoms.

After about two weeks of yuckyness, i went into an instacare clinic. I told the doc about traveling to Thailand, and all of my symptoms, and that i just wanted to make sure there wasn't something worse going on with me than a cold. He did some probing and tapping, and announced that i had a rather severe sinus infection. So he wrote me a prescription for Levaquin, the strongest antibiotic not administered by IV. As a side note one of the side effects of this medication is tendon rupture, yup you got that right.

This last weekend VaRonica, Sir and i went to Montana to visit my parents up at the lake. Although the weather wasn't bad, it wasn't the best. It rained parts of every day we were there, so no one really went swimming, with the exception of our nieces who live in the water.

So we had a relaxing few days on Flathead Lake, then headed back home to Salt Lake. Having been back for a few days now and and have worked several times, i am not feeling better. I have even finished my antibiotics, and still no improvements. I scheduled an appointment with our general practitioner for this friday. Wish me luck, i think they are going to take some blood samples, and possibly even a stool sample to try figuring out what is going on.

I will let you know how it went, unless it turns out gross, then i will talk about something else.