i'm gonna be normal

i must say, it's a very strange feeling when you realize your whole world has been turned upside down in just one week.

when you find out not everyone has a sore throat multiple times a month or gets tonsil stones all the time or has tummy aches constantly.

one night last week Matt bought a couple of those water syringes that people use when they get their wisdom teeth out and didn't tell me about it.

i noticed when i got the email confirmation from Amazon and then he called me during his lunch to tell me what he planned to use them for.

what was it?

to stick them in the back of my throat and get rid of my tonsil stones.

yeah, that sounds super fun Matt!

this was before i went to the doctor so i politely told Matt HECK NO because i figured the doc would give me some sort of pill to get rid of them.

turns out, doctors don't really know what tonsil stones are so there's no pill to get rid of them.

that's why Matt made me get out of bed at 11:00 last night so he could gag me with this....

filled with salt water.

he wasn't very successful since i would almost puke after every shot of salty disgustingness but bless his heart for trying.

after about 20 minutes of this i begged him to just scrape the nasty little devils out of my throat with the tip of the syringe but apparently my tongue has a mind of its own and wouldn't let him near them so he passed the syringe to me.

i'll skip all the super disgusting details about what happened next but i will say that i found out the tonsil stone i had back there was a lot bigger than expected.

instead of getting a little pebble sized thing out of my throat i got a clover sized thing.

the image has haunted me ever since.

but immediately after removing it i remembered how it feels to swallow normally.

huh, odd.

so i guess i sort of owe Matt a great big thank you for trying to gag me with a plastic object filled with salt.

in fact, i owe Matt a great big thank you for lots of things he's done this past week.

he's been a real sweetheart.

he's stayed up late researching my new allergies and then stayed up late researching things that could help me with those allergies.

he made me go see the doctor and then the allergist.

he's given me lots of hugs when i get sad after remembering i can't eat my favorite things.

he let's me whine and complain all i want and never gets mad about it.

he told me he's not going to eat anything i'm not allowed to eat because he doesn't want to make me sad.

and he even sat me down last night and told me that this whole allergy nonsense could actually turn out to be a good thing and get some of my other problems under control.

like my tendency to stress 98% of the time and my insomnia.

who knows how much this has effected me without me even knowing it.

so after we talked about that i decided something.

i'm going to get out of pity-party land and move on over to i'm-gonna-get-this-under-control-and-not-be-a-whiney-butt-anymore land.

i have a feeling i'll be much happier in the new land.

and the first thing we decided i need to do is keep a food diary.

right now is a big trial and error time for me so the food diary works like this...

i try a food and decide if it makes me sick or not and then i write it down.

that way i can have a list of foods that i know to stay away from and a list of foods that are ok for me to eat.

so far i've got...

pizza- good

ice cream- bad

chocolate milk- bad

grilled cheese sandwiches- bad

cereal with milk- bad

sandwich with a little bit of cheese- good

as you can see, the bad is heavily outweighing the good.

but i can't let it get me down.

soon i'll be finding a bunch of food that i can still eat and i'll forget about those others.

except for ice cream, i can't forget about ice cream.

i actually told Matt that there might be another list in my food diary of things that are bad for me to eat but i'll sacrifice being sick for.

hopefully i can control myself and that list won't be very long.

but this will be good.

i'll soon know what if feels like to be a normal person instead of being sick all the time.

how very exciting for me!

Best Worst Movie

ya know how after you see a bad movie you say "this is the worst movie ever!"?

well you can't really say that until you've watched Troll 2.

it was actually given the title of "Best Worst Movie" so you know it's true.

Matt's been asking me to watch it with him but i figured its more like one of those movies you watch with friends so you can make fun of it the whole time.

boy, was i right.

luckily i was able to talk Christine and Jordan into coming over.

i think they were a little skittish about the movie at first but we all warmed up to it pretty quickly.

i mean how could you not?

pure genius.

with the vegetarian goblins.

and the chorophyll green.

and the town named Nilbog that's actually goblin spelled backwards.

and the peeing on the food.

and the goblin that Matt is terrified of.

and the mom that's just as scary as the goblins.

and the double decker bologna sandwiches.

and the corn on the cob.

and the killer dance moves that i'll be sure to use at the next party i'm at.

all good things a movie needs.

allergic to the world

had an allergy test done today.

i almost wish i hadn't.

it was so much easier to blindly go through life thinking i was invincible.

when in reality i'm allergic to the world.

sad day.

the doctors don't want you to know this but allergy tests are NO FUN!

here's how it goes down...

you take your shirt off and put on one of those paper vest things that open in the back.

then you lay on the bed on your tummy and the nurse stamps your back with a grid so she knows where all the stuff is being put.

then the fun begins and she stabs/scratches your back with a million little things (and by a million i mean 71 - that's how many i got).

then you get to sit around for 15 minutes and try to keep your mind off the incredible ITCH that you're feeling by taking pictures of your back so you can see what it looks like...

(see the grid on my back and the red irritation?)

(in case you were wondering, red is bad. so the whole left side of my back = BAD!)

then the nurse comes in and makes you get back on your tummy so she can mark what you're allergic to and you get to hear her say "wow, you're allergic to A LOT of things."

then the doctor comes back and tells you again for the 100th time that she can't believe you've never had an allergy test done before because it's practically unheard of for a person with severe asthma like me to not have one done.

then she hands you the paper with the test results and they make you want to cry.

you want to get zeros on everything, plus signs are bad.

they might as well have put one giant plus sign on this paper, it would've been easier.

out of 71 things that were tested on me i am allergic to 43 of them.

to sum things up i am allergic to animals, watermelon, cantaloupe, oranges, avocado, and basically every kind of plant known to man.

and also the air, because i have asthma.

so every nice thing that grows out of the ground is out to get me and the oxygen that those nice things produce hurts my lungs.

the only good thing i got from all this allergy talk was when i found a new reason to prove to Matt that we should move to Oregon or Washington.

you see Phoenix/Mesa, Arizona are number 18 on the list of top 100 worst cities for a person with asthma to live.

on the list of best cities for a person with asthma is Seattle coming in at number 2 and Portland coming in at number 5.

it's all about looking at things with a positive spin people!

Matt- i'm packing our stuff so be ready to leave for Oregon when you get home from work tomorrow.

hopefully someone else can give me the positive spin on the other bomb the doctor dropped on me because right now this only makes me want to cry.

the doctor believes i am lactose intolerant.

remember when i was sad i couldn't eat avocado and i said there was nothing worse in the world?

i was wrong.

Nikki + ice cream = LOOOOOOOVE

everyone knows that!

Nikki + chocolate milk = LOOOOOOOVE

everyone knows that too!

i could name at least 50 other things that equal LOOOOOOOVE when combined with Nikki that include a milk product and now i'm not supposed to have them.

stupid cows with their stupid milk and the stupid chefs that found stupid yummy ways to use the stupid milk from the stupid cows AHHHHHHHHHHHH!

usually when i'm this upset i would go eat a ginormous bowl of ice cream.

what do i do now?!?

i love me some tv

sometimes Matt and i like to spend our Friday night at home watching all the tv shows we missed during the week.

the OCD Project just had its last episode of the season and i'm sad i don't get to watch it anymore.

yes yes, Matt and i are lame and watch shows about people who are trying to get over their OCD but seriously, watch it. it's so interesting!

these people get freaked out over things that are so normal to other people and the doctor makes them do CRAZY exposures.

like throwing baby dolls at a girl while she drives a car.

and actually telling a man to kill someone.

and putting two guys in jail.

and having a girl put urine all over her stuff.

and not allowing two girls to wash their hands at all and only take 5 minute showers every 3 days.

and some of the stuff i wouldn't even do!

me, my normal not OCD self, i wouldn't do some of the things they had to do.

like eating a scone that was sitting on the toilet or one that was dipped in toilet water.

HECK NO!

i'm so sad i don't get to watch them do that stuff anymore.

they better do a second season OR ELSE!

and of course, Whale Wars.

i was freaking SHOCKED by the episode last night!

mostly we watch that show to laugh at the people who think the best way to save whales is to throw stinky butter at the Japanese and get lost and have people held hostage etc. etc.

and we saw a preview of this episode and thought "those stupid Sea Shepherds! i can't believe they would get in front of a whaling ship like that!"

but then look at this footage that was on the episode last night.

this is all three views of the collision.

(turn down your volume so you don't hear the loud LRAD noise and the F word and go to 1:17 if you want to just skip to the craziness)

we honestly thought that the Sea Shepherds were the ones who got in front of the Japanese and that's what caused that collision but they weren't even inside the Ady Gil when this happened!

they were waving goodbye to the Bob Barker!

and the captain actually tells the man that's steering the Ady Gil to stop the boat which means it was the Japanese who intentionally rammed them!

stupid move whalers.

so the Bob Barker has to then save the crew of the Ady Gil that's sinking and the Ady Gil's captain tries to have them tow the rest of the boat back but the damage is too severe and they have to let it sink.

the whalers just sent a multi million dollar boat to the bottom of the ocean.

stupid stupid stupid.

but i'm so excited that the whalers were idiots and the Sea Shepherds look good for once!

Matt and i decided that what happened was the whalers just wanted to clip the Ady Gil and maybe take a foot or something off of it so it would be disabled and couldn't harass them anymore but they miscalculated and ended up taking 10 feet off of it instead.

of course, we'll probably never know what really happened since both sides blame the other but i really think it was done on purpose.

the Sea Shepherds have done so much to the Japanese and they finally couldn't take it anymore and just snapped.

and since Matt and i are Whale Wars lovers we read ahead about what happens so we know that the episodes that are coming up are going to be AWESOME!

watch them! you won't be disappointed!

Eclipse Talk

so i'm gonna talk about the new Twilight movie now.

i have seen Eclipse twice in theaters and honestly wouldn't mind seeing it again.

not because i'm a Twilight freak but because i think they did a pretty decent job on this movie.

i'm gonna go ahead and say that it's going to be the best movie of the series because really, who knows what they're going to do with Breaking Dawn.

okay so the parts i loved about Eclipse were...

1. Riley

i think that actor, Xavier Samuel, did a great job!

except for maybe when he got bitten and was screaming on the ground, that was a bit much for me.

but this guy hasn't even been in that much stuff and he lands a role in one of the biggest movies right now and he pulls it off like a pro!

i hope he's in a lot more stuff!

2. the flashback moments of Rosalie and Jasper's lives were pretty awesome!

they did a good job of showing just the right amount of their back stories.

that was one of my favorite parts of the book, learning about all the characters' stories, so i'm glad they did a good job with that.

3. Jasper

in addition to being Team Jacob i am also Team Charlie and Team Jasper.

i think one of the reasons i liked Eclipse as much as i did, the movie and the book, is because it has a lot of Jasper in it!

i loved when he was teaching his family to fight and he was all know it all-y and strong and then he fights Alice and she totally tricks him because he's trying to be cute and kiss her.

love it!

plus he's a looker!

as Jasper...

with the crazy eyes and the messy messy hair!

mmmm i like me some messy messy hair.

and as real life him...

how you doin??

in my opinion, twilight would be much better with a little less Edward and a LOT more Jasper!

4. Jacob and Bella's kiss

uh yeah!

remember when they almost kissed in New Moon?

and when the phone rang and killed the moment i was like "DON'T ANSWER IT! THAT'S WHAT ANSWERING MACHINES ARE FOR!!"

even though i've read the books and i knew what was going to happen i'm still Team Jacob through and through so i was dying to see a kiss between the two of them.

i mean, they both want it.

it's so obvious.

and then Eclipse came out and my dream of seeing them make out finally came true!

and DANG! the two of them should kiss more often because it was magical.

when Edward and Bella kiss it's all little pecks and probably the most unromantic thing i've ever seen but when Jacob and Bella kissed there were fireworks going off on that snowy mountain!

am i right or am i right?

5. BEST line in the movie...

"we both know i'm hotter than you"

YEAH WE DO!!

i think i can say with absolute certainty that there was not one person in the theater that did not have a smile on their face after that line.

now for the things i hated about the movie!

yay!

1. Victoria majorly let me down in this movie.

i don't know if it was the new actress that played her or if the director told her to act like that but man, she sucked.

Victoria is supposed to be all revengeful and evil and instead she had this whole girl-next-door thing going on that made me want to punch her in the kidneys.

she constantly has this pitiful look on her face, especially at the end when she's talking to Riley and telling him not to listen to Edward.

yuck!

look how much better Rachel Lefevre looks as Victoria!

Bryce Dallas Howard needs to go back to her days in Spiderman 3 or M. Night Shyamalan movies.

sad but true.

2. and since i'm already trashing on Victoria i'll say that i was CRACKING UP when she died!

i've never seen anything so stupid before in my life!!

i'm sure everyone else in the theater was hating my guts but i couldn't control myself when i saw her head all disconnected from her body and her face all expressionless.

they could've pulled that off much better.

and now i'm mad because i won't be able to watch that part without laughing.

it's impossible.

3. the whole almost sex scene was just sad.

i mean yay for waiting until you're married but come on!!

i actually felt bad for Bella after that whole embarrassing scene ended.

again, could've been pulled off better.

and then i just love how he tries to fix the situation by proposing.

hello! you just rejected her! she shouldn't want anything to do with you!

but since she's a moron and has no mind of her own i guess she'll go ahead and fall for your ridiculous ramblings about chaperoned walks and courting nonsense and say yes.

4. if anyone wasn't Team Jacob before seeing this movie, they probably are now.

i don't remember the books making him sound like this but the movie made Edward look like a JERK!

now, i love that but i'm sure most people did not.

it seems like every time you turn around in that movie he's doing something stupid to Bella.

like when he breaks her truck so she can't see Jacob.

and when he talks about her plane ticket to Florida right in front of Charlie.

and when he told her about the ticket to Florida in front of Charlie because Victoria was coming to town and he didn't tell her.

and when he doesn't want her to be part of the battle even though she could help.

and when it takes him forever to just suck it up and let Jacob warm Bella up in the tent.

and when he makes Bella talk about getting married when he knows Jacob is listening.

sheesh!!

how could anyone like him after all that crap??

if he really loooooooooves Bella so much he wouldn't be doing all that stuff.

do you see Jacob trying to pull any of that?

no no no.

he doesn't hide stuff from her and treat her like a baby.

put that together with the fact that she doesn't have to change for Jacob and the fact that he's 500 million trillion kazillion times hotter than Edward with what looks like 50 abs of steel, i have no idea why she wouldn't choose werewolf over vampire.

and that's the end of my rant about Twilight until Breaking Dawn comes out.

i'm not expecting a good movie because it was my least favorite book but i think they could either do a really good job with it or bomb big time.

let's hope for a job well done.

this can't be happening to me

something terrible is happening in my life right now.

it's actually so bad that i don't know if i'm going to survive it.

basically this is the kind of thing that nightmares are made of.

i can't eat my favorite things!!

a strange thing happened to me on July 5th when we had our family 4th of July party.

my mom had watermelon out and i ate like 5 slices of it and it was delicious.

but then after i ate all that watermelon i remembered that i am slightly allergic to it.

i never even thought about it because i have watermelon probably once a year, on the 4th of July.

so my mouth started to get kinda itchy like it always does when i eat something i'm allergic to but i just didn't worry about it.

then my brother and sister-in-law made some homemade strawberry ice cream for us and it was taaaaaasty but after i ate it i started noticing that it was getting hard for me to breathe because my throat was getting all puffy.

i thought i just needed a drink or something but then it didn't go away, it actually kept getting worse.

i didn't even realize i was having an allergic reaction to something until i explained what was happening to Matt and my parents and they told me i was.

and as if having my throat close up isn't scary enough, since i'm also a little asthmatic nerd it's double scary for me.

so i'm trying not to panic and i use an inhaler and i get a drink of water and i take some benadryl but nothing helps the swelling in my throat go down and i have to listen to Matt say i sound like Batman all night long.

it was not a good way to spend my holiday.

since that night i have had a sore throat and stuffy head (yes it's now been over a week) and have noticed that foods that used to just itch my throat are now causing much more damage.

life is so sad now.

the list of things i used to know for sure i was allergic to include...

anyone see a pattern here?

FRUITS!!

there is nothing more important to me than fruits!

i love them! ALL OF THEM!

and now my list of things that i'm allergic to is spreading to include...

i want to cry.

mostly because of the last 2 items.

i eat strawberries whenever i can and i don't eat just one, i eat MANY!

and i put avocado on everything that i can.

how am i supposed to eat a turkey and avocado sandwich without avocado??

nobody likes just turkey!

it needs its friend, the avocado!!

and guacamole!!! HOW AM I GOING TO EAT CHIPS?!?!

and i use to be able to say "oh well i can handle a little itchy throat to eat my favey fave foods" but now i can't!

i had a sandwich today with avocado on it and my head hasn't stopped hurting since!

i can barely keep my eyes in focus!

and my throat is all stuffy too!

this is very bad for me.

i feel very bad for me.

summer is for pool parties

on saturday we had a pool party where all the girls sat around the edge of the pool and watched as the boys got crazy ideas in their heads and then tried to do those crazy ideas.

like one person throws the basketball towards the hoop while the other one tries to hit that ball in mid air and somehow one of the balls is supposed to make a basket.

500 throws later, they did it.

next was standing on the diving board and bouncing a ball off the deck and into the basketball hoop.

an hour later, they did it.

then what started out as standing on Matt

quickly became a challenge of getting 5 of them to stand on the raft at the same time.

first they planned...

then they just went for it.

after what seemed like a million attempts, they did it.

then they tried to be normal and play a game of speed.

but it wasn't long until they were on to the next idea.

trying to launch people on the raft.

they got that idea when Matt and Chris almost killed each other.

i don't know if you can tell in that video since it's so dark but that plan didn't work out too well.

after all this craziness the boys finally settled down a bit.

and p.s. everyone LOVES Lydia!

and as long as there are no mooing sea cows involved she loves everyone too.

we finished off the night with a little pinata fun for Josue's bday but done in baseball fashion by pitching it to each other.

and some birthday cake!

as you can see, it was a very successful saturday night.

movie etiquette

movie etiquette is a very important thing and you may not understand that until you are sitting alone waiting for your husband to join you in the theater and a very creepy, smelly boy comes and sits right next to you even though the whole rest of the row is empty.

yes, that happened to me today.

and yes, i was very creeped out but i kept my eyes on my game of Tetris and waited for Matt to come and save me.

if this boy remembered his movie etiquette he would know that you are never EVER supposed to sit right next to another person unless there are absolutely no other seats available.

this rule goes along with these other rules...

- never ask people to scoot over because you were late and can't find a seat because those people were actually on time to the movie. you can't expect people to be happy about moving for someone who walked in during the previews so just don't ask them to.

- don't have a totally loud and completely separate conversation with your friends during a movie unless you want people to throw popcorn and mean insults your way.

- don't bring your camera into the theater to record the movie because the movie will be out on dvd in a couple months anyway with much better quality than your crappy camera.

- you better not be texting during the movie unless it's an emergency because nothing is more annoying than having a giant light in your face every two minutes.

- don't sneak in alcohol and pour it into your movie cup when you think no one is looking because everyone is going to notice.

- if you're 15 years old and still think it's cool to make out during a movie sit in the back row so none of us have to be grossed out.

- if you notice a person has their feet on the chair in front of them don't sit there. it would make you mad if someone did that to you.

these are a few of the rules and they are here to make sure that all people enjoy the movie they decided to spend lots of money to see.

can't follow the rules? rent the movie.

home sheep home

last night Matt wouldn't come to bed.

usually it makes me sad because then i can't fall asleep very well but last night he knew i took a sleeping pill and waited with me until i started talking crazy talk and then he tip-toed out of the room because he knew i would be knocked out soon enough.

little sneak.

and then at 2:00 A.M. i woke up and had to use the little girls room and noticed that Matt still wasn't in bed so i went into the office to force him to come to bed and get his beauty rest.

this morning when i woke up i found a funny email from Matt was waiting for me and it included THIS game.

when i clicked on it i then realized why Matt didn't come to bed for so long.

he was playing this game.

i rolled my eyes and shook my head at the weird things that can keep Matt awake at night and then decided i would play the game so i could tell him how ridiculous he really is.

but that didn't work out too well because the game intrigued me and i beat the whole thing!

curse you Matt and your silly little games you get me into.

and if that wasn't bad enough when Matt called me on his way home from work we spent his whole drive home talking about the game and then when he got home we replayed all the levels and discussed how he did one level this way and i did it another way and oh my gosh we are such losers.

but totally meant for each other.