Spoke Too Soon

For the past few months, I have done a fairly good job of avoiding getting sick (minus that UTI). I take my vitamins, make sure I get plenty of vitamin C, drink a lot of water (anywhere between 60 and 100 ounces a day), eat fruits and vegetables, exercise when I can. I was just thinking all of that to myself the other day, amazed that what I was doing was actually working, and hoping that there would be a possibility of me not getting sick (or at least not getting sick as often) this winter.

Yesterday I had kind of a scratchy throat. Nothing major, so I assumed it was allergies and kept drinking my water. By the time I got off work yesterday, it hurt to swallow. Overall, I still felt okay though. So I went to Barnes & Noble, grabbed a coffee, did some shopping, and then went to class. I was exhausted less than half way through. That caffeine did nothing for me. My sore throat was worse.

I got home and Chris had made chili. It was spicy and delicious (although a little too hot temperature-wise...I burnt my tongue :/ ), just how I like it. I only ate about half of a bowl though. My throat hurt more and I don't know if it was the spiciness that was making it worse or just eating in general (probably a little of both). I felt bad I didn't eat more.

I went to bed and woke up several times in the middle of the night sneezing and coughing. Not a good sign. Woke up this morning pretty much the same way except everything hurts now. My throat hurts. My eyes hurt. My head hurts. My nose hurts. I'm cold. I'm out of kleenex and am now using regular toilet paper every time I have to blow my nose (which makes my nose hurt worse).

I don't have an appetite (had to force myself to eat a banana for breakfast this morning) and I'm forcing myself to drink water...barely. I'm really bad about not getting enough fluids when I'm sick. I'm extremely thankful I don't have class the rest of the week. Hopefully I can get some rest and get over whatever this is quickly.

As I was thinking all those nice things the other day about how healthy I had been, I was also thinking to myself that I should probably get a flu shot this year since I didn't get one last year and that could possibly be why I got sick so much. But, you can't get a flu shot if you're sick. So I never got one last year because I was sick every few weeks. I was never not sick long enough to be able to get one.

I'm hoping this will pass and I can go get a flu shot. Not that getting a flu shot will keep me from getting sick at all, but hopefully it will keep me from getting sick so often.

Right now I'd give anything to be in bed with some soup and a grilled cheese. And enough medicine to let me sleep and breathe and all that good stuff.

What kind of things do you all do when you're sick to make you feel better?

Beginning of Halloween Activities

I didn't run this weekend like I had planned to :( I slept in way later than I planned to on Saturday (almost until 11 am) but I'm thinking I needed it because I was exhausted last week.

So I woke up, cleaned, made myself lunch, watched a movie, and then headed to JC Penny to look for a shirt for my Halloween costume for the party we're going to this Friday. Got it on clearance for $14. I also found the most amazing coat ever there and I really want to go buy it. Plus I don't have a nice winter coat so I'm going to have to buy one soon. After that I went to Walmart (bleh) to buy the other part of my costume. So my costume total was about $15. All I had to do was a little sewing when I got home and it's ready to go!

I made spaghetti squash for dinner Saturday night with ground turkey, broccoli, peas, and a red sauce. Can't say that it was my best, but Chris said it was good (at least I think he did...I could just be making that up to make myself feel better) so I'll take it.

After dinner we headed up to St. Louis to go to the haunted house at the Lemp Brewery. I was super excited because I've always wanted to go there (supposedly the mansion is really haunted, but I wanted to go just for the history of it). The haunted house part was in one of the caves under the brewery and I thought that was awesome because I've always wanted to go down there (there are supposedly several caves and tunnels under the brewery and mansion).

Waiting in line in the cold sucked. But it was pretty awesome inside. The actors aren't allowed to touch you, but some of them got super close and I didn't like that. It didn't really scare me, but it was kind of annoying. And I don't like to be touched. Or breathed on for that matter, and most of these people had cough drops and I hate that smell. Yuck. I think the scariest part of all haunted houses (or being home alone...) is the loud noises. It's not the people in masks or makeup or what they say to you. It's the banging on the walls, the sound of drills and saws, etc. So was I scared? Yes. But it wasn't the kind of scary that keeps you up all night or gives you nightmares. It was fun.

I really want to go back there some other time to do a tour of the mansion (which is now a bed and breakfast) and the brewery. I think it'd be so cool to see all that stuff (especially the underground parts, minus all the "haunted" decorations and whatnot). I love stuff like that. The history behind really old houses and buildings and the people who lived there.

Sunday morning we slept until 8:30ish. We decided on pancakes for breakfast, but neither one of us knew exactly how to make them... So we looked up a recipe and went with it. They didn't look too pretty, but they were delicious and that's all that matters :)

Chris's parents came down and his dad tried to get our dryer working. No such luck. It appears to be an electrical problem. :( Then we had BWW for lunch and then Chris and I went grocery shopping. We went to Walmart first and I was super grumpy the entire time because everyone who shops there is a moron and I hate them. Then we went to the other grocery store in town to get our produce (I will never buy produce at Walmart--it SUCKS).

We took a nap when we got home and then had cereal for dinner because neither one of us felt like cooking. After dinner we decided to carve our pumpkin. To say that didn't go too well is probably an understatement. Our pumpkin looks like it has down syndrome. :( After that, we lit some of our halloween candles (and put one in the pumpkin) and we had caramel apples and watched Young Frankenstein. I love that movie :)

Our little downs syndrome pumpkin--we love him :)

We are super talented at pumpkin carving!

Getting Back at it

So I went on my first run in a very, very long time last night (really, it's only been a couple weeks, but it feels like it's been forever and my body felt that way too). I ran a little over two miles (I stopped keeping track after two). My pace was extremely slow. And I had to stop a couple times--once due to the train blocking my way to the river. Oh and stop lights. Those suck.

I'm glad I got my run in when I did though. The weather was still comfortable. By the time I was about half way home, the wind had picked up and it was raining. I didn't realize just how much the temp had dropped though until I stopped to get gas. Holy cow was it cold and windy and wet. Yuck.

I had planned on working out a little more once I got home and then cooking dinner and relaxing. The only thing that happened was "relaxing" and a shower. I was a little upset about some things and rather than giving me motivation to work out more, it just made me depressed and tired. So I laid on the couch watching movies and such. Never made dinner. I did have an apple with some peanut butter, but that was it.

I was in such a rush to get inside last night thanks to the wind and the rain, that I completely missed the package sitting on the porch with my new Vera stuff in it! I was also busy playing with the poor kitties. They're so adorable. The white one was sitting by our door and the gray one was sitting in the chair on our porch. They're so friendly and they act like they never get any attention (which I'm really not sure if they do). I felt so bad leaving them outside in the cold and rain :(

Back to what made me upset yesterday. First, I got the letter in the mail from my doc saying all was good, no infections or anything abnormal. Cool. Although I kinda figured that if something serious was wrong they would have called rather than sending a letter. Then I opened another envelop from them. It was a bill for $400 for my visit. Not cool. I don't understand why I'm being billed at all. I wasn't charged any kind of copay, and when I checked out, the lady said they'd bill the insurance company. And since it was technically one of those "woman's wellness" exams or whatever, those are supposed to be free (aka covered by the insurance). So now I have to call and figure all this crap out since I can't afford to pay $400 for this stupid visit.

Then I opened the other envelope which was from one of the student loan companies. I was hoping it was a letter saying that my loans had been deferred since I had sent in the paperwork to have my loans deferred because SEMO sucks and didn't do it at the beginning of the year like they were supposed to. Unfortunately, it was a bill stating that my payments were past-due (which, yes my payment was late, but I did pay the damn thing). So they're saying I owe about $200 right now.

I'm beyond frustrated with all this and I don't know where to start. I'll probably just put it all off until Monday though because I'm not in the mood to deal with all these idiots. And I'm really not in the mood to have someone tell me I have to pay all that money.

Random Things Thursday

I'm officially declaring this "random things Thursday." It will be filled with random thoughts/things/whatever I want because it's my blog :)

So I'll finally be going for a run after work today! I've got two hours to kill between work and the keynote speech for the Faulkner and Warren conference this evening, so I figured it'd be plenty of time for a nice run down by the river. It's supposed to cool off a lot, which I'm prepared for, but I'm hoping it doesn't rain because that will make it even colder. I'm not prepared for that :(

We have a washer and dryer! Not the greatest things in the world. But as long as they get our clothes clean and dry, that's all that matters. And our internet will be installed tomorrow!!! Meaning I can spend all weekend doing research for my paper. Or not. I will probably just watch things on Netflix instead.

I am in need of a tea kettle. I've been drinking coffee pretty regularly since we moved. But, I recently discovered Barnes & Noble has their winter teas back and those are my absolute favorite. So I need a tea kettle and to stock up on tea. I can almost taste it I want them so bad. If we had a microwave, I wouldn't care quite as much about the tea kettle because I could just heat the water that way. But we still don't have a microwave, so I need the tea kettle.

I don't have class on Halloween! My professor decided he wants to take his kids trick or treating instead. Works for me. I get to sit at home in the dark watching scary movies and waiting for Chris to get home from work.

Halloween has never really been my "thing." I wasn't a fan of dressing up and trick or treating when I was younger. I got sick one year when I was in the sixth grade or something, so I stayed home and never went after that. I prefer the scary movie aspect of it all rather than the candy and costumes.

Speaking of costumes, we are going to a costume party the Friday after Halloween. I have no idea what to dress up as. I don't want to spend a lot of money, but I also don't want something that I'll have to constantly explain to everyone. Any suggestions? I've always wanted to go as a witch. But I'm far too lazy to go buy a hat and outfit and all that nonsense.

In other news, this has been one exhausting week. My sister texted me Monday and told me she was in the emergency room with severe stomach pains. My dad called a little later to tell me it was appendicitis and that they were going to do surgery. So she had surgery that night and came home later on Tuesday. Poor thing is in a lot of pain. They gave her vicoden but it's not helping her much. She must get that from me because vicoden doesn't do much for me either.

I finally finished Uncle Tom's Cabin yesterday (about 20 minutes before class). I had to skim the last couple chapters, but since I had a pretty basic idea of what happened, I wasn't too worried. And there wasn't anything left that would help me write my paper so it wasn't extremely useful to me. Overall, I don't like that book. It was painfully boring more often than not. And yet, I'm going to write my final paper on it. Idk. I'm weird.

Time Management

We have been living in our new place for a week now. I love it. But I'm also beyond exhausted. I'm not used to the amount of driving I'm now doing every day. Here's what my days have looked like the past week:

Wake up at 5:30am (except for the day my alarm didn't go off and I woke up a little after 6)
Get dressed, brush teeth, wash face, hair/makeup
Eat breakfast (usually cereal)
Chris has been making my lunch for me :)
Out the door and on my way to work by 6:30am at the latest
Drive about an hour and fifteen minutes to work (depending on what kind of construction they're doing--it seems to change daily)
Work 8am to 5pm
On Mondays and Wednesdays I have an hour break between work and class. Yesterday I used that time to do homework. Then I have class at 6pm to anywhere between 8 and 9pm.
Then I drive an hour and fifteen-ish minutes home.
Eat dinner and go to bed.
Days I don't have class I get home around 6:30pm. Figure out what to make for dinner, do homework, anything else that needs to be done.
Go to bed.

I've been getting to bed around 11ish. Which gives me about 6 and a half hours of sleep. I'm sure my body will adjust to this eventually, but getting between 7 and 9 hours of sleep for the past few months (I went to bed pretty early sometimes) I'm just not used to this.

And, if you hadn't noticed from that rundown of my day, I sit almost ALL DAY. I hate it. My legs have literally been sore from sitting so much. As I've mentioned before, I'm working on getting myself a standing desk so I won't be sitting the entire day. Work is the only place I can stand. I'm stuck sitting in my car at least 2 and a half hours a day, and I have to sit through at least 2 hours of class twice a week. I sit for the majority of my day. Who knew sitting could be so painful?

I'm also severely lacking in the exercise department. I don't know my way around town or anything yet, and because of that, I have yet to go for a run. And by the time I get home at night (especially after class) I'm beyond exhausted and have no energy to workout. The thought of getting up any earlier than 5:30 just to get in a workout makes me cringe.

I'm usually pretty good at managing my time, but a daily 3 hour commute makes it difficult. I came across a post about time by Jessica Lawlor  and there was also a link to another article she had written about ways to make your commute more bearable and productive. One of the suggestions was listening to audiobooks. I have considered this option for my literature class. We have about 5 novels left to read this semester and it would definitely be a better way to spend those 3 hours in my car rather than constantly changing the radio station. My only concern is how well I'll retain the information since we're quizzed on these books weekly. I think I'm going to try it with our next book and see how it goes.  If I can make that work, it will free up at least a little more time in my evenings after work that I could use to get a workout in.

How do you all manage your time to fit in exercise, work, homework (if you have it), household chores, etc.? Any tips or advice?

Our New Place

Finally we are mostly unpacked and I have some decent pictures for you. The only pictures I don't have are of the second bedroom because it's a little messy right now since we're using it for storage and the stuff we haven't had time to unpack yet, and of our bathroom because it's too small to take any decent pictures. But here's the rest! :)

Our stove/cabinets

We have lots of cabinet space...which is not even remotely close to being full 

Sink, dishwasher (thank God!)

Pics in the living room. Left: World series tickets, Right: Audrey (because Chris loves me enough to hang it up)

Recliner and futon

Other recliner 

Bookcase with all of our dvds, tv, and coat rack

Main bathroom

picture hanging in main bathroom

dresser and tv in bedroom

Other dresser, and you can't really see it, but the pic above it is of old Busch Stadium

Our bed and nightstands

Front of our house, complete with a Cardinals chair from my dad and a Woody and Rizz Suck It 2012 sign (which I had to wait in line for about an hour to get!)

I believe this weekend we'll be getting curtains for our living room and hopefully we'll have a washer and dryer this week sometime. So I'll update and add more photos as we slowly continue to decorate and whatnot. Also, we still don't have internet. But it should be installed sometime on Friday. Fingers crossed for that because I've got a paper to write.  

I love our place though. I'm so so happy we found it! 

I still haven't made my way out for a run yet though :/ I definitely plan on going this weekend though. I'm hoping for Saturday and Sunday, but we're going Sunday for sure because Chris is off work and I won't get lost alone lol. 

New Place! (sans pics)

The move went fairly well. I only ended up with a few cuts and bruises. I may or may not have lost a few articles of clothing though because the top blew off of one of the totes. Bummer. Oh well, less to unpack!

We got everything moved in fine. The unpacking is an extremely slow process. I don't have class tonight though, so my plan is to stop and buy some groceries on my way home, then unpack and do some homework and watch the debate. Cable was installed yesterday. Still no internet though. So it could be a while before I do a post with pics of the new place...it takes way too long to do all that on my phone unfortunately. I love it though!

I'm so happy with it. And apparently either our neighbor in the other half of the duplex or one nearby has kitties that hang around and they're just adorable. And they seem quite friendly. It made me so happy when I got home last night and the white one was hanging around. And it was there again this morning when I left. So cute.

The worst part about moving into a new place (other than unpacking) is trying to sleep at night. It takes me forever to get used to sleeping in new places so I haven't gotten much sleep. Chris on the other hand sleeps like a rock. Lucky duck.

We still don't have a washer and dryer yet either, which wouldn't be a big deal if I didn't have 3 loads of laundry to do. Blah. Hopefully we'll get them and they'll be set up and ready to go this weekend so I can get some of it done.

Chris did some more unpacking and hung stuff up on the walls yesterday and moved the unpacked boxes into the second bedroom so our living room looked semi-clean :) Also we have a real clock in our kitchen now. I don't think I've ever had one that wasn't on a stove or microwave lol. But it's red and matches all my cherry/his Cardinals stuff.

I know it's only our second day there, but it's frustrating trying to figure out when/where to workout and run. I don't see myself running outside other than on the weekends during the day. Our neighborhood and surrounding area is very poorly lit (minus a few porch lights) so I'm not comfortable running in the dark, especially since I'm not familiar with the area yet. So I guess I'll save my running for the weekends and just do workouts at home during the week.

There is a state park nearby that I wouldn't mind going to on a Saturday or Sunday. They have a few different trails that sound nice.

Sorry again for the delay on all the pictures (maybe by the time I'm able to upload them, we'll be moved in and I can take nicer ones!). In the meantime, I'll leave you with this: Student financial services at Semo will never, ever be helpful in any way. If you want something done right, you either do it yourself, or yell at them until they do it.