ouchie

so, as you know, i had my first physical therapy appointment last friday.
and it went a little something like this:

chit chatting with the physical therapist.
stretches.
hot packs.
ultrasounds.
rubbing/"stretching out" my IT band with my physical therapists FIST.
lots and lots of pain and sweating and pain.
more stretches.
electrodes and cold packs.
frozen.
done.

and by that night, it looked a little something like this:

yikes. i just kept saying it felt like my legs were completely bruised. so that night before bed, when i finally had a chance to look at my legs....indeed. bruises. on both legs. not cool.

yesterday i had my second session. and as soon as i walked in and showed my therapist my bruises, he's like 'oh yeah, didn't i tell you it'd do that??'. i was like um no! and then he proceeded to rub along my IT band again. it felt great. really great. and today i have more, new bruising on top of my old, now yellowish bruises. it's good times! oh and i get to go back tomorrow for more!!!

this therapy thing better work..........that's all i'm sayin.

memorial day weekend: 2012

we had a pretty low-key weekend. but i had an extra day off, so that made it better than usual!

friday we did a late session at the temple with the Oveson's, and stopped by coldstone after for a treat. and then i just felt sick after :( the shake was still pretty tasty though, i can't lie.

{sidenote: why can't Jae make a normal, smiling face in pictures? ever? i cannot figure out why.}

saturday we had planned a fun outing to a Bee's game with my sister and her family, but it got all rainy and cold and crap. dang weather. so we decided we'd stay home, cook up some of our own burgers and cookies, and watch the Celtic's game on tv. we threw some games in there, too, and it was actually a really really fun night! i was a bit sad about the Bee's game though. another night i guess! oh! i should add - because of the crappy, sudden on-set of pouring rain, Jae couldn't mow any more lawns and called it a day. which means he got to hang out with me!! i got him for a half of a saturday. it was lovely :)

sunday we just did the usual - church in the morning, naps in the afternoon, and dinner with the fam in the evening. except after dinner we went down to the cemetery to visit some of my mom's families gravesites. it was a nice evening and the cemetery was packed. it's nice to visit the graves - clean them up a bit and leave some colorful flowers to keep them company. sure do miss my grandparents. it was a good visit, indeed.

monday, Jae had to work to make up for the rain we got on saturday. boo! so i went with my parents, niece, and nephew to a couple cemetery's in salt lake to visit the graves of my dad's side of the family. we were out at wasatch cemetery, and we heard a bagpiper. we figured there couldn't possibly be someone attempting to have a funeral service on memorial day. and it wasn't. it was just this nice bagpipe-playing man, spending his memorial day walking around the cemetery, playing beautiful, respectful music for families visiting their loved ones. the best part? he started playing 'amazing grace' as he was walking past my grandma's grave, who's name was Grace. it was perfect. dad teared up, and i'll admit it, i did too.

it's that good

so yesterday afternoon i received this little large gem from my boss. because i'm awesome and stuff.

by this morning, i am left with this...

yeah. those are big pieces of chocolate. solid, smooth, delicious milk chocolate. normally i don't like just solid chocolate, like hershey's or symphony bars. but this ghirardelli chocolate? man oh man. that picture is actually already out of date, because currently those are long gone and the wrapper is in my garbage can. 

chocolate for breakfast...whoops!

so today i have my first physical therapy appointment for my knees! i'm a little nervous. i've never done any kind of therapy for anything. it should be interesting. wish me luck!

and i wish you all the most fabulous memorial day weekend!! Jae and i have planned a little family fun tomorrow night for my sister and her family, and they don't know about it yet, but it should be a good time! got big plans for the weekend? whatever it is, i hope it's great :)

old person knees

almost 4 years ago, i ran my first mud run (10k) at camp pendleton in san diego, california.

and it was AWESOME.

for the last 3 years, i have gone to cali to run that race. last year was the first year Jae ran it with me. so he had the pleasure of witnessing firsthand how bad my knees hurt when i run more than, oh maybe 2 miles or so. it's super fun. well, after last year, Jae informed me that i would not be running any more races until i got my knees checked out. so finally, almost a year later, i decided to do it already.

 

looky there - my lovely knees. no, there's nothing really to look at in my xrays. they're just xrays. didn't show anything exciting. but they informed me i probably have two things going on - IT band issues (which i was guessing was happening) and what they call 'patellofemoral pain'. aka knee pain haha. he explained that there are 3 muscles hooking onto the outside of the knee and only one going on the inside of the knee. when i'm running, those 3 on the outside are pulling my kneecap over to the side, and that's why i'm getting all the pain on the outer/bottom edge of my kneecap. and then i keep having the horrible pain, especially when i bend my knee, for a few days after while my kneecap is working it's way back in place. 

so their recommendation? physical therapy. 

they said they could do surgery, but it's only proved to be super helpful about 60% of the time. it's just kind of too unpredictable. they said they get the best results from just doing therapy and strengthening that inner muscle so it can hold my kneecap where it should be. 

that being said, i start therapy this friday. fun fun! i hear the foam roller is something to be afraid of....

saturdays

now that it's warming up, Jae is busy busy working on saturdays. which leaves me and the pup to ourselves. i must admit, having Zoey to hang out with on saturdays when Jae is working is a lot better than last year when i'd hang out on saturdays all by myself. she's (usually) pretty good company :)

the past couple saturday mornings, we've gone with daddy to the dump (have i mentioned how unpleasant the dump is? i guess it is the dump, which should be pretty self-explanatory, but still...) it's our family outing haha. this past saturday, it was so warm and sunny, and i could just tell Zoey was itching for some extra time outside, so we sent dad off to work and we went on a walk.

walking around west bountiful looks very different from walking around our old bountiful neighborhood, even though we're only like 10 minutes away. we see so many interesting things! i just had my phone on me, so the pictures aren't the greatest, but i had to take a couple snaps along the way.

you can't really tell because we were too far away (again - only had my phone) but we passed some horses and chickens and ducks. there was a man out working in the barn area - sweeping and cleaning and such, and the ducks and chickens were making quite a ruckus. it was so loud! Zoey just completely stopped in her tracks and stood there staring for a good 5 minutes. she didn't bark or do anything - her eyes just stayed glued in that direction and she stayed quiet, just listening. it was so funny. i think she would've liked to go play with them!

at one point, the air was completely filled with these lovelies. i hadn't even seen them as we had passed by, but i sure smelled them, and had to go back to take a picture. they were gorgeous!

i think we'll make this walk a weekly saturday tradition. anyone want to join? :)

feeling ungrateful

after going back and reading over my last post about all the (not-so-great) happenings as of late, i've also been reading or hearing story after story about people and families who have been through truly trying and life-changing events. i feel like i'm complaining and stressing about the 'small stuff' when there are so many things to be grateful for and blessings i have that i'm overlooking.

and i'm not feeling so great about that.

it's time for a reality check...for myself.

i feel i need to redeem myself and remind myself how great life is. i don't have any real reasons to not be happy! i have a good job, Jae has a good job with great (flight!) benefits, and a good business that he works so hard at. yes, we both have some health issues that we'll deal with for the rest of our lives, but overall we have good health and good insurance. we both have a vehicle that gets us around. we have food in our kitchen (often thanks to our wonderful families).  we have plenty of clothes and shoes. we have our own house! that's much more than many can say.

we have our sweet (some days more devilish) little Zoey who gives such sweet snuggly kisses every morning. when i'm kissing Jae goodbye, without fail, she sneaks her little puppy face right up between us. i think she gets jealous and wants in on the loves too. she's a stinker who i always catch dragging my shoes out of my closet and pulling under the bed so she can chew on them, but she's so so sweet and i just love her and am so glad she's around to make our house more exciting!

both Jae and i have amazing, fun, supportive families that do so much for us all the time. we have so many friends and family we can rely on and go to if needed. for anything. seriously, they're so awesome and generous. we are surrounded by good, good people.

among the many many other blessings and great things in my life, i have my Jae. lately i feel like we've both been so busy with everything and so exhausted from being so busy, the few minutes we actually get to see eachother and spend time together that when we do, we're both grumpy and stressed (ok maybe me more than Jae) and easily annoyed. and we take it out on eachother. (ok once again - probably more me than Jae). and i hate when it's like that! he's the one person that i want to see at the end of every day, but he's also the one i take for granted. it's weird how that happens. but even in those grumpy, frustrating times, i know how hard he works and how much he cares. i can't imagine life without him. i am one lucky girl.

here's to taking a step back and enjoying all the good things in life. like the sunny 75 degree weather we'll be having this weekend in utah.
xoxo.

{just a few of my favorite times with my favorite people to remind
me how great life is. yes, you may have seen some of these photos before.}

when it rains, it pours

sometimes it feels like you just keep getting hit by brick after brick after brick.

like, sure, why not have more things happen? it can't really get much worse at this point.

ya know - the point where it just becomes humerous because it's so ridiculous!!!

(it's even more ridiculous when we bring some of these things on ourselves.)

well that was our last couple of weeks. let's start from the beginning...

Jae's truck needed to be registered in april. it also happened to need emissions and inspection done. we've just had this truck for a year, so this was the first time we had to do all of this for this particular truck. i told Jae at the beginning of the month let's hurry and get this done and not wait til the last minute so we can just get it out of the way. so on about the 25th of april (wait, didn't i just say let's not let this go til the last minute??....) i finally made a call and scheduled an appointment for Jae to go in that friday and get both emissions and inspection done so he could then get it registered.

so friday comes, Jae takes the truck in, and they informed him since it's a diesel, they can't do the emissions - that has to be done by the state. that would've been good to know beforehand, but whatever. but they can do the safety. so they do that, and they fail him. tint on the front two windows (that we paid to have done) is too dark, and since the truck has to go to the state for emissions, this place can't possibly pass him on the tint because the state will then see they passed him and they'll get in trouble, yada yada yada. SO i called the state place to make an appointment, and, of course, they're booked through the 2nd of may. lovely. we got the tint taken off (yes, paid to get it on and now paid to have it taken off) and he went in to get his emissions done. failed. turns out whoever had the truck before us put an after-market catalytic converter in that isn't cool enough for the state to take (i also found out the state place in kaysville that us davis county peeps have to go to is the only place that won't accept that kind of converter. of course.) and they told us it had to be replaced. now i don't know much about cars or trucks, but i do know that catalytic converters are NOT cheap. i immediately got on the phone with a couple of places, and found a place that happened to have an exact one of what we needed in their shop (it had been ordered for someone else and they never showed). and it was about half the price of a new one from the dealer (for reasons that i don't really need to go in to). getting one from the dealer would've been well over $1600. $1600!!!! vomit. long story, short (too late, i know) we took the truck in, got the new catalytic converter put in, all special and certified and crap, we had the safety and emissions re-done and passed and got it all registered. we were only like 8 days into the next month. oops.

in the middle of all of the truck hooplah, our dryer became unusable. again, without getting too much into boring details, it has some issues with the vent, and one night while we were doing some laundry, our house smelled with an awful burning/melting smell. there wasn't anything else on or going, so it had to be the dryer vent. and honestly, we're not quite sure how to fix our problem and haven't really had a lot of time to dig deeper into it, so that problem still stands.

and then, i put a load in the washer, left for a couple of hours, came back to put it in the dryer (that was threatening to light on fire. smart, i know) and there sat our clothes...in a pool of freezing water in the washer. doing nothing. not clean. nada. so i pulled all the clothes out, one by one rung them out, put them in plastic sacks, and drove to my parents house to wash and dry them. our washer then sat for the rest of the weekend, completely full of water because i couldn't get it to do anything. i tried every setting, tried plugging it into different outlets, checked the breakers. nothing would make any difference. it just did nothing! well my sweet mom saved the day - she called a repair guy and he came on monday. turns out the lid sensor was burned out so it thought the lid was open all the time, hence it wouldn't run or do anything. thank goodness it's working now.

there's probably more i could complain and cry about, but i suppose that'll do for now. i must say, though, we had some nice, happy things happen lately too, and i can't forget or overlook those. for example, we got some random credit on our gas bill because 'gas prices have dropped the last few months' and after that was applied, our gas bill for last month was a whopping $0.96!!! um heck yes! we also got a surprise cute plant and card from a neighbor our of nowhere. i'm struggling to keep the plant going, but i am trying! oh, and Jae got his truck all fancied up.

this is my chance - yes i will give a plug for Jae's company.....if you have any lawn care/landscaping needs, call Jae!!! he kindly provided his number for you via his truck :)

roughly $800 and something dollars later, we're back in business at our house. (well except that dang dryer...) life is so fun sometimes, isn't it? i guess we should be grateful for the crazy, crappy times because that means we should have something totally wicked awesome coming our way soon, right?? ;)

1 down, 9 to go

this past week, we had this beauty installed:

alright, so i know what you're thinking....um it's just a window?? but compared to the window that was here previously (which i'm now wishing i'd taken a picture of - it was being held together with blue painters tape..) this is so pretty! and it slides so nicely and looks so much bigger somehow. and the biggest plus? there is no air coming through! they did a great job installing it and it no longer sounds like there wasn't even a window there at all, like it did with the old one! yay! if only they weren't so dang expensive, i'd have 10 pictures of new windows to show you instead of just one. oh well, one by one it is.

i really like scones.

we got to celebrate our cute nephew River's 4th birthday with a giant chocolate turtle cake! isn't he so cute? it was a good time. and that cake was mighty tasty. we love you River!

as part of River's birthday celebrations (and to celebrate Star Wars day...May the 4th be with you...get it?? May the 4th? yeah it's pretty bad, i know) my family went to good ole chuck-a-rama. i don't care who thinks it's gross, i love me some chuck-a-rama. potatoes, turkey, ham, and hot hot scones? um yes please. oh and don't forget the chocolate milk. yes, i get it every time i go. yu-um.

and to wrap up our cinco de mayo saturday, we had some tacos and a round of volleyball with some friends. if you can't tell, that's Jae in the green hoodie - he just hit the ball over. he's really awesome at volleyball. i sat on the sidelines with Zoey and it was chilly! but a good time.

now i'm craving scones...

let the good times roll

when you think of barbeques, doesn't it just scream summer to you? it does to me. and i LOVE me some summertime. and bbq's. we had our first really warm (i think it's even safe to say hot) weekend a couple of weekends ago and we took advantage.

we took some chicken, some marinade, some ravioli, sauce, the grill, and wa-bam! delicious sunday evening dinner-for-two outside on the patio. love it.

{jae really is more excited than he looks....}

mmmmm.

too bad this weekend doesn't look so promising for a bbq.

but it's a weekend nonetheless!

**happy friday friends**

encouragement

i saw this and it was one of those i didn't even know i needed to hear this, but turns out i really needed to hear this today moments. know what i mean? life can seem so mundane a lot of the time, but at the same time it is so full of interesting twists and turns. i love it.

*sidenote: is it weird that when i think of the prophet of the Church, i still first think of this man? because i do.

happy wednesday  :)

sneak attack

so we have a pretty usual bedtime routine around our house. it basically goes like this:

i shower/get ready for bed.
jae takes pup out to go potty once more before bed.
i get in bed and jae brings pup in to bed to go to sleep.
pup and i go to sleep.
jae stays up and watches ESPN/some sort of game (right now it's all about NBA playoffs).
jae eventually showers and gets in bed.
jae goes to sleep.

the end.

except while i was scrolling through his pictures on his phone last night, i found some interesting ones i hadn't seen before. turns out pup and i are so cute while we're sleeping (ok so it's mostly pup that's so cute, not so much myself) that jae likes to snap a picture here and there of us. i thought i'd share a couple because they are pretty dang cute (again - cute of pup, not of me sleeping....that's not really that cute - so please disregard my super glamorous sleeping self. how do some people just look so good when they're just sleeping? it's beyond me.)

i can't help but laugh when i look at these. that pup cracks me up.