Carpal Tunnel

So, kind of ironic that I am blogging-typing about having possible carpal tunnel or tendinitis in my right wrist, but it had to be documented!

About 2 weeks ago I worked really late and noticed a shooting pain in my right wrist followed my my fingers in that hand going numb. Not good. The rest of that week, the pain was so bad that I had to take Advil and then borrowed a wrist wrap from my mom, One night the pain was so bad that I couldn't sleep! But I am happy to report that I only wear the brace when I am at work and at the computer there! yay!

Last night, my cousin, Jimmy, from Oklahoma came over for sort of an impromptu dinner party with my parents and sister. I left work a little early, ran home, cleaned up the house a little, and made a pistachio salad and got some other things ready for dinner. My parents brought over the hamburger to grill and chips. yum!

Tucker was SO naughty when they were over! Right when my cousin got to our place, I was going to take Tucker outside to go to the bathroom, and when the doorbell rang, Tucker did as usual and went into his kennel, but must have sensed that it was someone new and proceeded to stay in his kennel and pee in it. UGH! So his pillow and blanket went in the wash. A little while later, after he had already been outside, my parents came to the door. Tucker was in the kitchen and he decided to pee in THERE too! I have no idea what to do with our overly excited peeing dog! Just try to take him outside before we know people are coming I guess.

Last weekend, Derick got really productive and decided we should try to reconfigure the elements in our office. We did and YAY! It looks so much better in there! With that, I decided to reconfigure my idea files and place them all in binders so that I can actually look at them, and not in file folders that never get looked through!

This Friday, Derick and Paul are going to try to do their first podcast for Midwestgamersunited.com. So that should be interesting. Derick has been listening to a few of them here and there. I already know somethings that the should NOT do:

• do not have it go longer than 30 minutes
• do not have an all-girl's podcast
• do not swear constantly
• DO talk about a wide variety of games and platforms
• DO call each other by your gamer tags
• Do not get stuck on one game for the entire podcast unless you warn your listeners in advance that is your intent
  

That is about all of those that I can think of right now. Other than the fact that anyone playing Resistance 2 should have to have a mandatory screening before being allowed to purchase a microphone and hooking it up to the game to play with people online. Some of the most insane, idiotic, ignorant, and just mean things come out of some of those gamers' mouths. I don't think there is enough soap on the planet to help some of them clean up their language. But I digress...

I am glad that it is Thursday. Thursday means that Friday is right around the corner and that means a 1/2 day at work followed by two glorious days off from working!

**Breaking News**
Christopher and Banks will be having its first ever dual store opening in Scranton, PA this friday, July 31st!! It is a huge deal here at the office and that means that almost all of the VPs of the company are out there to celebrate it! I was joking to my boss in an email that she should take a picture of herself and my other coworker and send it to me, as I might not remember what they look like after not seeing them for 2 weeks! Yikes! We, left behind at the corporate office are going to also be celebrating with our own mini celebration and ribbon-cutting ceremony and cake!

I am happy that I have been able to get almost all of the things on my work to-do list completed by the time that my boss returns! I love the catch-up time that it allows me when she is out of the office! No interruptions, just the constant work time.

I just got an email from my mom the other day that asked Derick and I to "save the date" for Sunday night, October 11th, because her and my dad have made arrangements for us to celebrate our one year wedding anniversary! How cool is that?! Now we are speculating what it is...and my mom informed me that is was indeed NOT a set of Wild tickets...hehe. I can't believe that we have almost been married for a YEAR!! Yikes! Time flies!

Derick job news - I guess there is no news on this one. Although we have been talking about possibly expanding his search to other states. Every time we talk about even the slightest idea about moving, it gets me excited to think that it could be a possibility for us! Even though it would be incredibly difficult in so many different ways. We shall have to just wait and see what happens. I have everything crossed that he lands a full time teaching job for the fall though.

Well, that is about all new that I can think of.

-L

Behold, the power of sleep...

Oh man. Sleep is a wonderful thing to catch up on, on the weekends! Derick and I got woken up to Tucker unloading his full bladder on the bedroom floor. MAN! He must have snuck downstairs lastnight after Paul, Jenny and Roman left and drank about a gallon. So that was at about 7:15am. Since I was jolted awake by that, I decided that I should just get up anyways and get some things done around the house. I flipped through some magazines in bed, got comfy and Tucker jumped up and wanted to snuggle and fall asleep. After a little while, i could not keep my eyes open any longer and also snuggled up and fell asleep! I took a little nap and woke up a couple of hours later. It was nice though!

I texted a couple friends to see if we were still on as far as plans went, but they all cancelled on me! They all penciled me in for next weekend, so we'll see how that goes. I am going to have a really busy weekend next weekend if that is the case! Hang out with Ben on Thursday-Friday, then Katie and the berry farm to go berry picking maybe saturday and then hanging out with Emily sunday! whew!

Today might be more focused on making homemade chicken noodle soup - with homemade noodles and then going through more of my photos. I am bound and determined to get those all into albums and put away so that the mess is not there in the office cluttering things up! That room is the bane of my existence!

I did most of the housework yesterday, so that is pretty much done. I like to get that out of the way so that I can do more fun things later in the weekend. That is what happens when you have a husband who really never takes initiative to do any housework or cleaning. I think most guys are all wired the same way - they cannot see a mess or dirty things as soon as women do. It gets very waring and very annoying.

And with that, I am off to work on soup! yay!
-L

4th of July weekend

Happy late 4th of July!

I took the day off on Thursday and went with Derick (bright and early) to his nanny house to take the boys to Como Zoo for the day. We had a lot of fun! It was a good thing that the zoo wasn't bigger than it was ~ the boys got tired and distracted easily and were hungry every 5 minutes. But we made it through and with smiles on our faces when we got them back home! Success!
For our 1st married 4th of July, Derick and I decided to go out and get the rest of the items we need for successful camping ventures! Then, it was off to Amery, WI (at my parent's lake property) to take a dry run of camping - to see if all of our equipment worked and to make sure we didn't forget anything... oh we did...Ketchup, can opener and breakfast food... but I do have to say that hot dogs and s'mores make a pretty yummy breakfast! hehe.


On Friday night, we went over to my aunt and uncle's lake place just down the road and watched their "Lighting of the Lake" and their awesome fireworks! After that, we chatted for a bit. I was really surprised with how great Tucker did with all the fireworks! There were some "rocket bombs" that some neighbors down a couple cabins had that they decided to light off and scare everyone and Tucker just flinched a little with the rest of us! We got to test his newest gadget--shocking collar, so, needless to say, he is learning to listen more now and not disobey so much.

We decided to pack up our stuff and head back home later Saturday night so that we would be able to sleep in our own bed that night. Neither of us slept very good the night before, so we wanted to be rested before returning to work! Friday night while we were sleeping, there was a loon fight on the lake. No one else heard it - Derick slept right through it and my parents didn't hear it way up in their cabin, so the next morning everyone thought I was making it up! So between that, and the bullfrogs and Tucker roaming around on the rustly tent floor, it did not make for good sleeping conditions.

So we packed up all our stuff and stopped back into my aunt and uncle's cabin for dinner, as planned. We ate and chatted for awhile and then decided it was time to head for home. It was an interesting ride home with all of the fireworks going off allover the place! Kind of neat! I think all three of us were happy to be home! I know the shower sure felt good!

Well, there was a brief look into our 4th of July weekend! I will have to post more about "real life" later on!

-L