What's been going on, plus some more pictures

Hey everybody! We've kind of gone back to a traditional, not as exciting lifestyle these past two weeks, but I'll let you know what we've been up to, all the same:

• First of all, my bites/poison ivy/whatever they were, are mostly all gone. There's still a bit of an outline to it and they still itch occasionally, but the medicines seemed to have worked.
  
• We saw Dark Knight last Saturday, and it was AWESOME. Heath Ledger is a scene stealer for sure, and a total creep! :) Patrick and I spent several hours with Kat on the Friday before we saw it, looking for Batman Begins (we hadn't seen it yet, but were determined to before we saw Dark Knight). It was all rented out or there were only $30 special edition sets to buy, but we finally found the rare movie for all of $5!!! Probably the only one in the city!
  
• Patrick and I resumed some jogging again this week. (Applause for us!) It was hot, muggy, and difficult, but really satisfying too. I'm very proud of us! However, I rewarded us in the not so enjoyable fashion of locking us out when we returned from our exercise one night, and we didn't have any phones either (way to go, me). Patrick knocked on a neighbors door and contacted the landlord, who had to send the maintenance man out to us. After a $25 fee and some mosquito bites from our wait outside, I learned my lesson!
  
• We're going to the fair this weekend! We'll let you know how that goes, but we're anticipating slaw dogs, elephant ears and lemonade!
  
• My best friend Cassandra informed me after this past week's doctor visit, that she is going to have her baby girl any day now! Patrick and I are going to be godparents! :)
  
• I finally can show you some pictures of me rock climbing! I was able to view some of Kat's photos, so here's some copies:

Getting ready for lift off. :)

A really good picture of Patrick, as he waits to climb.

I just got past the most difficult part!

Pausing for a photo op! (And a break- I got too worn out to make it to the top!)

Yup, that's Patrick swinging from the tree. What a goofball! :)

Taking a break on the next wall. Luckily there were some nice ledges!

Yay! I made it to the top of this one!

The birds and the bees....or maybe just spiders!!!

So remember our last blog- American pastimes? All sorts of feel-good stuff....until I got bit by a spider and got an infection!

Here I am- so happy and naive to what would happen later...

Going to bed the night of the BBQ, Patrick saw a tick on himself so I had him check me for one in a spot I had an itch (incidentally, the top of my right butt cheek- not embarrassing at all, I know). He didn't find a tick but said it looked like a spider bite. Not a big deal (yet).

So the next day it was bigger and we decided we better keep an eye on it. One of my coworkers has a son who just last week had a spider bite that swelled up, caused him to break out into rash over his entire body, had red streaks going toward his chest, and was vomitting and had chills. I wanted to avoid that if possible.

Unfortunately, Monday after work I was getting itchy on my arm where red marks had formed, and the diameter of the spider bite was expanding. Patrick went to the store to get me Benadryl and itch cream. But after two nights of taking the medicine and everything only getting worse, we finally went to the clinic yesterday morning. (The itch was getting to be unbearable!!!)

Thank goodness I still am on my mom's insurance (I haven't received my own quite yet), because the visit and medicine would have been a ton of money. As the doctor's assistant put it, it looked like the spider didn't wash out its mouth before it bit me. It didn't look like a venemous bite, but it could be a staff or bacterial infection. And the arm- probably poison ivy. (Go figure, after all my boasting that I didn't get any after all my friends did.)

Yup...shoulda kept my big mouth shut.

After taking massive amounts of the antibiotics and steroids I received yesterday, my arm is definitely showing some improvement and my itching is diminished. Hopefully this ugly bite will soon go away too!

Gross! (and really itchy!)

The American pastimes: Baseball, BBQ, and housework...

This past weekend we were pretty active (imagine that). Friday we went to a Springfield Cardinals baseball game and got in for free thanks to somebody handing Atalie a pair of tickets they weren't going to use. Springfield whooped the Arkansas Naturals 6-0 and the fireworks after the game, as usual, were pretty cool.

Saturday we got a late start on some of our errands. Target and groceries were our goal before going to a BBQ out at one of my coworkers house down near Boaz, MO. There were a bunch of people from my work there and we all chatted away until pretty late. We spent the night out there and woke up for some breakfast before attempting to head off to church. We got a late start and missed church (tsk, tsk) and decided to make some use of the time we had. Derek has allowed me to store my drumset in his basement (under the condition that he gets to play it every now and then- of course!) so we dropped that off, went to Atalie's work to see if a package got delivered (it didn't) then home to cool off (it was 87F and no AC in the car presently). Then we went off to do laundry, get groceries and finish the night off with filing papers! We're one step closer to getting the office (junk/storage space) organized. Busy weekend for us :)

What did you do this weekend?

Horseshoe Canyon

As I mentioned in last week's blog, we went rock climbing! I've tried a rock wall before, but that was about 6 years or so ago, and as I found out this weekend, real rock is a bit different. It was the first time our friends Kat and Marissa, and myself, had ever tried real rock before, and it was tough!

Two of our friends, Derek and Erin, are experienced rock climbers, so Derek would climb the rock and secure clips and the rope while Erin belayed for him, then the rest of us would take a turn up. They had a guide book they used to pick certain rock routes, but they said the first rock was harder, in their opinion, than the book rated it. I suppose Kat and I did ok by getting 2/3 up that one, and Marissa got up 2/3 another wall rated the same level of difficulty, but Kat and I were a bit discouraged despite the fact it was our first time.

Patrick, I found out though, is quite good, for not having gone in forever. (He went once last year, but other than that it's been 6 years or more since he last had done it.) While I was working on my wall, he went up and down another, and by the time I had gotten out of my harness and shoes, he was already up the wall I had just abandoned!

Luckily for me, Kat, and Marissa, the next rock route Derek and Erin picked was an easy one (by most standards of course- still not for me!) I think I would have found it easier than I did, but by that time I had grown nervous since my confidence had sunk. But I made it up, and I felt all the better for it! We all felt much more empowered after getting off of that rock, even if it was technically an easy one.

To give the rest of the group something more their level, we headed off to another site where I finally had the chance to watch Patrick on his entire climb- he did really well! He made it look like it wasn't difficult at all!

Now we're really sore. I've never had all the muscles of my body sore at one time, but I do now! Neck, arms, shoulders, legs, back, hands- bruises and scrapes too! But it's the feel good sore, where you know you challenged your body and did something well worth it. Here's some pictures, although we don't have many of me climbing yet since those are on somebody else's camera. But in the meantime, you can take a look at some of the pictures we took!

If he wasn't climbing a wall, then it was a tree!

Patrick all harnessed up!

Repelling down that first wall after the successful climb to the top.

My attempt up the rock. Not too far yet, but this beginning part was the most difficult- not much to grab onto.

Derek leading the climb up the "easy" rock route we did.

Waiting my turn to go up the wall Derek's leading in the previous photo.

Patrick scaling his way up the more difficult rock route we visited at the end.

And he's made it to the top!


Erin (not the one I mentioned earlier in the blog- there were two on the trip) trying to follow in Patrick's footsteps. She almost made it!!!

We camped on a dude ranch near the climbing sites. Patrick's trying to keep the horse from climbing in our tent! :)

Sam's Throne and Hemmed-in Hollow

This being a longer weekend, thanks to 4th of July, I have been pushing Patrick to get our friends to plan a hiking/camping trip. We bought me a bunch of equipment when I got down here and haven't been able to use it yet because they were all busy with school, then hunting season foiled our plans, and then it was too cold. So I wanted to put my new things to use!

Thursday, as soon as I was done w/ work, we picked up our friends Kat and Derek, packed up our car (Doris, the Taurus), went to the grocery store and stopped for firewood, and made the couple hour drive to Arkansas. By the time we had done all that, set up our tents and a fire, cooked a very late dinner, and went out to a lookout point (Sam's Throne) over a valley and open sky to watch the lightning in the distance, it made for a very late bedtime of 3 AM.

Despite being very tired, and there being lots of rain, we had to get up early to meet our friend Luke and his girlfriend Alicia at a trail where we planned to hike. It was only 5 miles round trip, but a very steep downhill trek, which was slippery from the rain (although, luckily it had stopped). However, the rain rewarded us because at our destination (a carved out section of giant cliff called Hemmed-in Hollow) we had a beautiful waterfall, that otherwise might have been dry. After having a relaxing lunch, we made the exhausting trip back up the steep trail (my calves are soooo sore now!).


We returned to camp to make dinner, then hung out on Sam's Throne for quite a while to watch the sunset, went back again to make hot dogs and smores, and then Patrick, Kat, Derek and me decided to watch the stars back at Sam's Throne again (it's not a far walk from our campsite- 1o minutes tops). We went to bed around 1 AM, and were back up early again, but we packed up early after a gourmet meal of coffee and breakfast burritos.




The original plan had been to hike around some more, but I think everybody was worn out from the day before (and our late nights!), plus Kat broke out in poison ivy really badly on her leg. Indeed, I took a 4 hour nap when I got home, and didn't have any trouble sleeping at night later! Anyway, it was tiring, but because we had come home Saturday afternoon, it was nice to have Sunday to recooperate. And, it'll help prepare us for next weekend- more camping, and rock climbing! :D

Slackers

Wow- I knew it had been a long time since we've posted a blog, but sheesh- a month??? Yikes, we've been a bunch of slackers!

Actually, I thought about writing one a few times, since a lot has happened, but I haven't been in the mood. As some of you know, I was offered a full time job at the advertising agency I was working at during the afternoons. I told them I'd think about it as I waited for notification about a full-time university job I had interviewed for (and I thought it went quite well). To keep things brief, the university department (incorrectly) took somebody else's word that I had withdrawn my application, and didn't consider me for the job. I was really depressed, as I would much rather work at the university than at my advertising job (wierd, I know, but my advertising boss can be a bit aggravating to work for).

So in any case, I was really pathetic during the 2 weeks I finished up at the university's HR office because I wasn't looking forward to leaving. I moped around the house a lot and turned into a big pessimist. Ridiculous, yes, which is why I finally made myself separate work from anything "not work." I've only been working full time for a week now, and I'm not liking the job all that much more, but my mood has improved by forgetting about work as soon as I walk out the door.

In addition to the depression of the job stuff, Patrick and I have grown really lazy (and a bit homesick, for my part at least) since we last visited MI. We've not gone exercising and have paid little attention to chores and projects around the apartment, nor have we even gone on our weekend bike rides or visits to the park. At the beginning of this week we've started to rectify that by going out walking or jogging a couple times this week, and just washing the dishes right away after dinner.

I guess we just hit a rut for awhile, but we're getting ourselves out of it, and I'm feeling happier as a result (I think the same is true for Patrick). Hopefully we can keep up the motivation, and stop being slackers!

WHOOO!!!! Stanley is ours!!

WINGS WON!!

Amid a shower of "shh" from Atalie I celebrated as a fan should with jumping, yelling, clapping, yelling, jumping, clapping, and, did I mention yelling? Amazing! Unfortunately because the rest of the world doesn't give a rip about hockey (NFL, MLB, NBA- boooooo; ESPN sucks!), especially down here in Missouri (baseball-loving ogres), I must request that as much Red Wing Stanley Cup memorabilia be sent down here immediately so that I may show these oafs what they're missing. This includes, but is not limited to, shirts, hats, posters, stickers, DVDs, and maybe even a Lidstrom jersey (HINT, HINT). :)

GO WINGS!!!!!!!

Don't forget about the jersey- early Bday presents are welcome and, in fact, encouraged!!

Oh yeah Happy Birthday Mom!