Nothin to this post..

 

But some pretty winter pictures.
and some doggie portraits.
She's such a good model.

I'm a raven. 

Kidney stones; Worse than labor?

     

 

Now that’s what I’ve heard but I obviously am in no position to give my opinion on the statement (not prego). I do know, however, that kidney stones are hell and I wouldn’t wish them upon anyone. Even Miley Cryus (ugh, I so don’t like her).

 So it runs in my family. My dad, my mom, the brothers, and goodness probably the dogs have had them! I was bound to get them sooner or later. I was just hoping later. I mean, I am only 2 decades old! But sure enough, I woke up in the middle of the night knowing something was very wrong. TMI but I actually thought I had a UTI at first. (ohhh how I wish it had been a UTI!!) But then it hit. The worst pain I have ever experienced spread across my entire abdomen and creeped up the right side of my back. I felt my whole body tense and found myself in a tight ball unable to move. Paul kept mentioning the hospital but I can’t stand doctors and needles and how clean everything is there so I postponed it as long as I could. I think when I started moaning and rocking back and forth was when we realized we needed to go. Paul gave me a beautiful blessing that touched my heart about how my heavenly Father would never wish pain upon me and that Christ knows and feels what I feel. This helped my soul be calm. He then ran downstairs to get the car as I desperately tried to get my coat and shoes on. Neither was successful. I did, however, crawl into our living room and began to throw up right next to our Christmas tree. I’m so glad I had an empty stomach otherwise our tree would have been decorated in a not so pleasing way. At that point I literally had thoughts that I was going to die. “Is this really how I’m going to die? What will Paul do? Why is this happening!” And then it turned into “just kill me now!” Seriously, I thought it was going to be my final hour. Paul then scooped me up, no shoes or coat, and carried me down to our car and sped up to the hospital.

Remember, I HATE needles but as soon as they hooked me up to an IV and gave me that morphine I felt life in my veins again. Ohh and those soft warmed blankets they gave me! I was in heaven! I thought that maybe I really did die! But the morphine wore off after maybe ten minutes and I was back to the fetal position wishing I had never been born. Luckily they gave me a more and I was back to floating on clouds. After a while they confirmed that I, indeed, had wonderful stones developing in both my kidneys. 
Then they made me pee in a cone. So much fun.

They informed me that the stones were small enough that I could pass them on my own in the next two weeks. I sure hope they pass sooner. In the mean time though I’m really enjoying feeling loopy and going to the bathroom 24/7. How fun isn't it? 

Sweater Weather

It's seriously sweater weather. Actually, it's more like puffy coat, hat, gloves, and boots kind of weather. We had our first huge snow fall yesterday and my Arizona husband is really enjoying it.. NOT! He walks up to campus every morning and usually wheres his Aldo shoes but my feet froze just thinking about his poor cold toes. And so we began our snow boot hunt. Which was a lot harder than I thought! You would think Rexburg, Idaho would have some good snow boots that didn't look like ginormous elephant feet! After searching the shelves at Cal Ranch, Walmart, and Big5, we finally found some decent ones. I'm really glad too because it was -9 today. SOO COLD.

Along with the -9 degree weather, the whole town of Rexburg had a power outage from around 6am until 5pm. Ohh my goodness you know what this meant? Snow day! No school, no work, and sleeping in until an embarrassing late time. It also meant freezing cold apartment and frost an inch thick inside (yeah, inside) our apartment windows. It was worth it, i think, freezing our little toes off. Love days like today.

'Tis the season

We put up our tree. All four feet of it! Then we got tangled in some lights and started smoochin.

'Tis the season, after all.

As of lately

Look at this new toy! Paul and I have been talking about getting a camera for a long time. We finally did our research and got a really good deal on this guy. We having so much fun playing around with this. Definitely taking some getting used to but the pictures are so much better than those blurry I phone pics. 

 I am so puppy hungry. Not baby hungry.  PUPPY HUNGRY. I want a pup sooo bad. Of course I have my Molly dog at the parents house (oh do I love her so) but she is just a little nut case. I could never have her in an apartment. I dunno what it is but I have the extremely soft spot in my heart for all fluffy living things. Like, even a picture on facebook will get me "awww"ing and "oooo"ing. I make Paul take me to the local animal shelter every week to see and play with the doggies so that makes me happy.

 Speaking of soft spots.. this little boy has me wrapped around his tiny little greasy finger. I always look forward to my Mondays and Fridays where I can go to my sisters house and tend this boy and his little sister. Seriously. The cutest kids alive. 

Matilda, our pet scorpion, died a couple weeks ago. Those little pinchers.. they will be missed. kinda. But props to this little insect for living in a piece of tape for 2 months while transferring her from Arizona to Idaho (I'll have to tell that story another time).

We've been working hard at our baking skills. Especially muffins that come out of a box. See those cupcake holders? They aren't just an old cupcake holders. They are made of silicone which makes them reusable. Saving trees one cupcake at a time. 

 Seven month everyone. SEVEN months! I can't believe it. Time just needs to sllloowww the heck down. It's been the best seven months of my life though. Really. 

Being married is hard

When I was engaged my parents warned me that being married is more than hard. They told me there would be difficult times and difficult situations that will arise. They counseled with me that it will be hard not to want to call home when feeling discouraged. I listened to their council and advice but I didn’t grasp it fully. How is it THAT hard? It shouldn’t be hard when two people love each other so much. Especially for Paul and I. 

Now that I'm actually married I see these difficult situations are common. Last night as I and my sweet heart held each other tight and cried ourselves to sleep, I thought for the first time.. Marriage is hard. Just like my parents told me. It had been a day full of hard and unexpected events and I finally realized what they had been telling me. Marriage is not hard in a way where Paul and I disagree every moment of the day. Its not hard in the way where we are letting differences over come our love. I just mean that marriage is hard because suddenly, we are now relying on each other to survive in this crazy mess of a world. This means getting and maintaining a good job, getting through school, raising a family.. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared.. especially when some of these things just don’t work out for the time being. 

 I asked Paul “why does this crap happen to us? We have the worst luck. The world is seriously out to get us.” Sometimes I don’t think Paul listens very carefully because he usually will sit there quietly after I have  unleashed all my stress and anger and I’m left feeling a bit hopeless with my self pity. But I’ve noticed, he always answers me back. Even if it’s thirty minutes or even an hour after my rant. This time he answered with a very sweet and comforting answer that calmed my soul. He suggested that we look at it in a different light. Every other couple in this world is going through these same challenges and more. We aren't the only ones and to be quite frank, we have it pretty good. Then he said, "we need to go to the temple." I know that being married is hard. It comes with challenges but every obstacle is worth it when my honey and I do it together.