Good Doctors

I've been reflecting on the many doctors I've been blessed to have known in my life.

My first doctor—and the one I saw for the longest amount of time—was Dr. Brunworth. He wasn't a perfect doctor, but he was a darn good one.

I will always remember the compassion and care I received when going to his office. I remember the way the door used to swoosh open, the striped seats in the waiting room, the kids corner with toys and books, the way you used to walk down a hallway of files and charts, the various rooms with semi-themes (especially the room filled with all the baby pictures, mom and I used to comb through those seeing if there were people we knew.) I remember the chemical smell of the x-ray room, used to develop the films.

The staff over there knew us well. Mom and I were over there frequently enough due to my CF. And they were so accommodating with that. There was barely a room in that place I didn't see, because if the waiting room was full or it was winter and filled with colds and flus, they'd let us wait elsewhere so I wouldn't catch something. I sat at their nurses lunch table, I waited in the hallway in the back, I'd sat in the doctor's office, wherever they had some space and could get me away from people, they graciously let me.

Thinking back on this, it really seems of another era. I can't even imagine being allowed to do this at Mercy now. Nothing against Mercy, they're fine and all, but in a world with so many more rules and policies—not to mention, a non-existent relationship with anyone on staff—this seems like a request that would be denied. Or would require a lot of explanation. Maybe I'm wrong, but I truly feel that Dr. Brunworth's practice was a special thing.

In my CF specialists, we started out with Dr. Kemp, who was good. Dr. Mallory was pretty good, even though he gave me a bit of a scare when I was young. Then we switched to Cardinal Glennon and were graced with knowing Dr. Albers and Dr. Noyes. Albers was wonderful, and I'll always remember how assuring he was when, after my first visit with him, we were suddenly having to admit me in a hospital we knew nothing about.

I may have shed a few tears when it was my final visit with them. I know there is a picture somewhere of me with everyone there. Judy, the nurse, was wonderful too. I felt such a bond with them that I even called one day after I got married, just to let them know I had. I knew they'd like to know that, since marriage for CF people is not a given. They knew Jarrod, too, since he'd been visiting me in the hospital since I was 19. And a few weeks later, I received a wedding card, signed by everyone on the team, congratulating me and Jarrod. That was a pretty special thing too.

I left them to transition to "adult care" once I graduated college. I transferred to Barnes, and the only doctors I really don't have many good things to say about are the ones at Barnes.

But my most recent doctor in Columbia, Dr. Kouba, was one of the best. She started out as a family medicine doctor, and was not a pulmonologist by training, as most CF specialists are. However, at some point many years ago she took an interest in CF and immersed herself into learning and treating the disease. I truly feel her background gave her a more well-rounded approach to everything, instead of such a focus on the lungs. Yes, the lungs are a BIG part of what makes CF difficult, but they are not the whole picture. Not by a long shot.

Unfortunately, I had to say goodbye to her recently too. I received a letter in the mail saying she was retiring at the end of April. When I called in early May to request an appointment because I was feeling worse, I was fully expecting I'd be seeing the new doctor, Dr. Chairman. Turned out Dr. Kouba was 'technically' still there, and also turned out: she wanted to see me one last time.

I was glad to hear it, because I wanted to see her one last time. Once again, we had developed a great relationship as patient and doctor. She truly, truly cared about me, and how Jarrod and I were doing. I had an appointment in January, and there was no mention of her upcoming retirement. I was very puzzled by the announcement, wondering if she was okay and if something unfortunate had come up. I wanted say a proper goodbye.

During my appointment, she told me she had, ironically, lung disease. And this was a forced early retirement, because she could no longer be in a hospital setting like this. She didn't elaborate on this "lung disease" of hers, and I didn't want to ask too much. But I had a hunch things may not be looking too good for her, because she kind of alluded to how she didn't know what the future would hold.

During my hospital stay, I talked with someone who used to be on our CF team. She told me Dr. Kouba has what is called "interstitial lung disease" and... she would eventually need a lung transplant. Wow...

At my appointment with her in May, it was so sweet because she was like "Yeah, you called and I was like I wanna see Jamie one last time!" She said, if I'd let her, she really wanted to give me a hug. I had been hoping the same thing! And as our visit concluded I asked if she'd be willing to give me her address, I said I'd send her a Christmas card. It was a little hard to tell, since she was wearing a mask, but I think she was tearing up a little. She said she'd love that, and provided it to me.

I am so saddened to hear of her diagnoses. I'm certain I was not the only patient she cared so deeply about. A great doctor like her does not deserve something like this.

As of right now, I am technically under the care of Dr. Chairman, but he will be handing off the CF patients to a new doc there. I'm not sure about all that, but really CF is not our primary focus as of right now.

Dr. Kouba does not know about my cancer diagnosis. I've wanted to reach out to her and see how she is, but if she asks how I am, not including this new piece of very important information would feel wrong. And I don't want her to feel guilty because, in truth, she did misdiagnose me. I don't hold it against her at all, though, and I hope no one else does. And really, she wasn't the only one, if you recall, because even when we went to see an oncologist, the doctor who specializes in this, he didn't suspect this to be cancer. And even when we were doing the test workup with Dr. Chairman, none of them felt this would turn out to be cancer either. No one expected this to be cancer because I don't present any of the usual symptoms associated with this, and because I am so young. Yes, a part of me will always wish that we could have found this sooner (who wouldn't?), but even if we had found it the first time I told Dr. Kouba about this 'lump' near my scar, it would have already been stage four because it would have spread.

Now I'm meeting a whole new team of doctors with this cancer process. I've been told by multiple people that Dr. Tan, from Siteman, is really good. So I'm thankful to be on his radar. Back when we were thinking this was ovarian cancer, I was briefly under the care of Dr. Hunter and he was amazing; I so wish he could have continued to be my oncologist, but his specialty was gynecology.

I hope you have also been blessed with good doctors in your life. And if you haven't, I encourage you to do something about it. Even though it took a little bit of pushing from Jarrod, switching from my doctors at Barnes to my awesome doctor at Mizzou was the best thing I ever did. And it probably saved my life, because I know with 100% certainty I would not be sitting here as healthy as I am right now if I'd continued on at Barnes. Part of that is me, and that I am a different person with a different outlook on life and on my self-care now, but still: we all look to our doctors for their background and experience. Like I said, it can feel like a gamble, but sometimes switching is worth the risk. Your health is the most important thing in your life, don't settle for mediocre care if you feel there might be better options out there.

KC Getaway

This weekend Jarrod and I took a last-minute trip to Kansas City! We decided we would go on Wednesday, and put together some plans and booked a hotel.

We went out for a nice dinner on Friday, when we took this picture. We were all dressed up, and it was Jarrod's first time wearing a bow tie! We had reservations at a place called JJ's, which was really great. We both started with a cup of delicious soup (tomato basil for me, onion for Jarrod) and had steaks and potatoes for dinner.

Saturday morning we stopped by a candle shop I wanted to check out. Candles?! What?! I can't burn candles, but I do have a candle warmer and sometimes use wax melts at home. It was an adorable shop, and I took notes of scents we liked in case I ever wanted to order online. Right now I just put on "I'm the Boss, Applesauce" which is a nice, spicy apple blend. We went shopping at the Country Club Plaza, which for those that don't live here is a really neat historic shopping and dining area. Unfortunately, it was raining lightly and it wasn't all that enjoyable, so that got cut short a bit. But it was fine, really. I found a new vest and Jarrod got some gourmet food stuffs from this amazing cheese shop called The Better Cheddar. And I just had to go in a dog bakery, where I found Josie a "Woofie Pie" (doggy version of the Woopie Pie, haha!) I also got her a "Pupkin Spice Latte" cup full of treats. To say this place was adorable and full of wonderful dog puns is an understatement.

During the afternoon we went to the National WWI Museum, which we both really enjoyed. We both learned a lot, not really knowing a whole lot about WWI in general. The biggest takeaway we had was realizing that the whole war started in one week, and it all began because of a misunderstanding. I would recommend it, especially if you're a history buff.

After all of that walking around, I admit I was exhausted. Dinner was at this quaint, little Italian cafe nearby, and what a gem it was. Our waiter was Italian, which was obvious as soon as I asked what kind of sodas they had, and he said "San Pellegrino" so fast I had to stop and figure out what he said. The food was great!

This morning we got up and went to the art museum, which is a really nice museum. The building itself might be even nicer than the St. Louis building, though I think I like the St. Louis collection better. But there were still lots of great pieces and I enjoyed it. There was this one chair that I keep remembering... It was made of black and white puzzle pieces that were 3D printed, and it listed where you could download the plans to make one yourself. Which I think begs the question: If it can be mass-produced, is it still art? Which is exactly the kind of ideas that Andy Warhol was toying with with his screen-printing art. I guess the answer is yes, but the question still remains.

After that we grabbed lunch and headed home. It's kind of funny, because all of the restaurants I had planned for us to go to, we didn't go to them for one reason or another. But we ended up at the perfect lunch spot and ended our trip with these little dessert shots: puddings and mousse and cake served in a shot glass. Perfectly sized for one! Jarrod had a chocolate one, I had a hazelnut one and we both agreed, mine was better lol.

It was a really great weekend and I'm so glad we went!

Shop Small

I had a conversation with a woman who owns a local business in our small town. While I was making my purchase, I also asked her about donating a gift certificate to an event I was chairing. She said she couldn't, but could offer some coupons for free coffee. Then we had a nice little chat.

In a matter of words, she basically said how she gets these requests all the time (she said she kept a notebook one year, and they were almost daily.) As much as she'd love to support everyone, this is the best she can do. Otherwise she would go out of business.

I've been thinking over our conversation ever since. She was so friendly, and I greatly appreciated her donation and her openness and warmth. I told her I was new at all this, and I was completely surprised to hear that almost every day, someone else just like me is asking her for something.

I've lived here almost my entire life. I've seen our small town expand and grow and bring in a lot of chain stores and restaurants. And while that's exciting and good, to a point, it also means it gets that much harder for the little local guys to compete. I am still saddened that our Benjamin Franklin 5 & 10 (a.k.a. Annie's) had to close years ago, and I realize it was probably due to us getting a Michael's store. I can list off a handful of nice fine dining establishments that have gone out of business too. And those are the ones just during my lifetime.

Towns and cities are constantly changing, for sure, but with the added competition from online sales and the convenience of two-day Amazon shipments, it has to be harder than ever to run a small business.

I really like the sentiment and meaning behind the phrase "shop local" or "shop small." But in truth, I'm not the best at putting my words into action. Maybe you struggle too. After that conversation, I realized I need to work on changing this.

The big chain stores are hard to ignore, with their large buildings and big, bold signs in high-traffic areas. But there is definitely something to be said for paying a little more to support a small business. Getting the lowest price on anything and everything is not the point of life. If it were, we would all be wearing sweatpants from Walmart and eating McDonald's (because seriously, can you believe how cheap their food is now?)

It's not going to happen overnight, like all habits it will take some time. And I'm not even arguing buying everything you possibly can from local shops, because I realize most of us live on a budget that might not bend and flex.

But prioritize.

Everyone laments when a small business announces they will be closing... for good. I have seen it time and time again: the shop announces on Facebook they will be closing their doors. And how they love this community and are sad to leave, but they just can't keep going. And they want to thank their customers and support they've received. But they have to do what they have to do. Many people swoop in with sadness over the news, claiming they were their "favorite" or raving about this or that, but words like this do not equal dollars.

If there is a shop you really like, make a point to go in there more than once a year. I'm certainly guilty of this, only patronizing a couple businesses around Christmas time. When I walk out, I'm always like "Why don't I come here more often?" I'm a big believer in putting random, mundane things on list apps so why not include something like this? Add "Check out what's new at _______"

And while sad comments about a shop going out of business don't equal dollars, you know what could? Good reviews.

Reviews really have become the keystone of online purchases and decision making. It started with Ebay sellers and knowing you wouldn't get ripped off, to Amazon with product reviews, to Yelp, to TripAdvisor for places to go, to Facebook, on and on. So if you can't afford to shop somewhere, you can certainly afford to give them a great review so someone else can. It only costs you a little bit of your time. And in some places (like Facebook) you don't even have to write anything, you can just rate them.

I adore this little store that I went to. It offers more flavors of coffee than I've seen anywhere else, plus loose leaf tea, plus a myriad of other cute and useful household items. I would be truly, truly saddened if she ever had to close her doors. So starting now, I'm going to make a concerted effort, until it becomes habit, to go to her store more often. I can afford to pay just a little more for a bag of coffee beans.

Another lady opened a book store last year here. It is the most adorable book store, in a little historic corner house. It's warm and inviting, and everything a small-town bookstore should be. Last week, I messaged the owner asking if she could order a book for me. I know fully well I will pay full price for it, whereas I could just order it off of Amazon for 30% cheaper, but right now I don't care. Walking through her store is so... up-lifting. Back in college, when I drove away from a Border's store for the final time after their going-out-of-business sale, I almost cried because I thought this was the beginning of the end of book stores. I love book stores, but buying all my books from Amazon does nothing to keep book stores alive and well.



You have to admire small business owner's for their willpower, too. I know I don't have the guts to do it. With the entire world seeming like it could be against you, with cheaper prices or fast convenience or better roadside placement, it has to be exhilarating and frightening to take the plunge. You have to admire those kinds of dreamers. Those are the kinds of people who truly believe in their community. Who believe that, no matter what, it was worth a shot, because had something to offer; they bettered their community and the lives of their customers.

When you think of it like that, who wouldn't want to support them?

*Today was Mom & Pop Business Day, and inspired me to finally publish this post. I hope it inspired you a little bit :)

Friday Fast 5

1. I am really trying not to be paranoid, but with all these stories about the bad flu season we are in, and cases where normal, healthy kids are dying, it's hard not to. I still have to live my life, though, but I'm cautious. I don't make unnecessary trips out; I don't browse around stores for the heck of it, like I might during the summer, things like that. I have Jarrod make small trips to Schnucks when I can, instead of me going. And I still attribute the two habits I have mentioned on here to my [so far] success in avoiding colds and the flu this season. I also try, as much as possible, to keep my distance from people no matter what. That's about all I can do without being confined to my house for 4 months. And that sounds like zero fun and no way to live your life. 
2. Jarrod and I officially joined the Jaycees at the end of last year. We've jumped in with both feet, Jarrod being the new webmaster and I am... planning a trivia night! I've been busy writing questions and organizing everything for it. It will be April 7th, starting at 7pm at the VFW Hall in town. If you're interested, let me know and I can send you the flyer. Or contact me to reserve a table! 
3. I've started crossing something off my bucket list: I'm learning how to sew! Since Toni in town retired at the end of the year, I gave in to the fact that it was time for me to learn how to hem pants. Both Jarrod and I always need to have our pants hemmed. Mom's good friend Gwen is teaching me! I had my first lesson in November, and actually hand-stitched a pair of Jarrod's dress pants at Christmas! I was so proud of myself. I'm glad I finally decided to give this a try, because it's really not as hard as I thought it would be. 
4. We are looking forward to the Olympics. Jarrod likes the winter games more than summer games. We actually signed up for Sling TV for one month, then we'll cancel it, so we can watch more than the highlights they run on channel 5 in the evenings. 
5. Josie is getting pretty scruffy these days. Her face is in the "slightly shaggy but adorable" phase that I really like, but the rest of her hair is getting long. Problem is, it's still pretty cold out and I'm hesitant to groom her anytime soon. She just might be a shaggy dog for another month or so.

Josie and the Beeps

Years ago, there was a terrible thunderstorm in the middle of the night. Lightning struck a house on the street right next to ours, causing a huge boom. It freaked Josie out, who was laying on the bed. When it happened, it also made my oxygen concentrator beep due to the surge. All of it, combined, made her want to run for it. To where, I have no idea, but we tried to keep her on the bed with us. Knowing what I know now, that was probably not the best thing for us to do, but we had no idea.

Ever since then, she has been scared of thunderstorms, especially ones at night. I've worked with her a lot to try to calm her fear and redirect it. If possible, we play or go in the basement. And if she tries to hide under our bed, as I now think she was wanting to do that initial time, we usually don't block her. If that's where she feels safe, then we shouldn't try to stop that. That being said, my biggest fear with that (and still is) is that a storm might progress and get so bad that we actually NEED to go to the basement, and it will be hard or impossible to coax her out.

Anyways, lately I've noticed a new thing she's scared of: beeps.

I'm not quite sure where this came from except I can say the first time I ever noticed it was about 4-6 months ago when we had a beeping smoke detector in the basement. I actually asked my dad to come over and fix it around 11am, instead of waiting for Jarrod to come home, because it was bothering Josie so much.

So in this case, she shakes. You'd think she is shivering, but she's nervously shaking. Even up to an hour later, sometimes I still catch her having tiny little shakes.

This is on my mind again because last night, as I was demonstrating my new glucose meter to Jarrod, we later noticed she was sitting in a corner of the kitchen, shaking. It took me a second, but then I realized that it must have been the tiny beep that my meter makes when I turn it on. Wonderful... this thing I'm now supposed to use 4+ times a day is going to make her nervous.

I love Josie so dearly, but I gotta say this is the last thing I feel like tackling right now. I'm going to have to do some good research on training her out of this, because this is not going to be good if we let it go. Fortunately, it doesn't seem like our alarm system bothers her, and maybe because that's predictable. She knows this thing in the house beeps when we leave, and it beeps again after we open the door and are back home, which is almost always followed by the sound of the garage door. But even the other night I was watching Star Wars, and I noticed her ears move every time R2-D2 made his beeps and boops. Luckily she didn't start shaking, but she was definitely noticing it.

Le sigh... I can turn off the beep on my glucose meter, which I might do, but still. We really need to fix this problem before it gets any worse.

Project Recipe

This week I took on a random project: organizing my cook books and recipes.

The whole idea bloomed from a realization that Jarrod and I have been eating many of the same meals the past 3 months. I already felt like I had a pretty good system down for meal-planning. But I improved on it this week and my hope is that it will remind me to try new recipes more often.

My meal planning system is as follows: I have a small notepad with recipes we commonly make and meal ideas written in it. They are as simple and generic as "grilled chicken" to more specific recipes like "Whole Wheat Spaghetti Carbonara." I pull out my little notebook when I'm building my list to go shopping, or placing my online grocery order. I buy ingredients to make certain recipes or meals, trying to plan out at least a week's worth of food. Once I purchase the groceries (and know they weren't out of an item) I then write the meal on a sticky note that goes on the fridge. Then I can look at my sticky notes and easily know what I have on hand to cook. If I skip this step, I feel lost. It's so easy to walk into the pantry and stare for ten minutes going "What in the world can I even make? I don't know what to make." Even though I keep a lot of food on hand, not all of it matches up all the time to make a full recipe.

So that was how I have been doing things for a while now: consult notebook with recipes, create shopping list, write out sticky notes. And it seemed to be fine, until my realization.

I decided to edit and update the first step, the recipe notebook.

When I get a new cookbook I like to go through all the pages and mark different recipes I'd like to try. I put it back on the shelf... and rarely pull it back out.

So I decided to ditch the notebook and move everything to a spreadsheet—a Google sheet, to be specific, so it's accessible anywhere and Jarrod can see it too. I added all of the things that were already in my notebook, and then came the new part: adding in any and every recipe I have ever marked to try. I added the name of it and where I could find it (ie, Betty Crocker cook book, page 254.)

While I was at it, I also organized my recipe binder a bit better. When I got married, my mom gave me a binder with a few recipe printouts from her to get me started, and I've added to it through the years. There were tons of magazine clippings and printouts I shoved in the back file pocket, never to be looked at again. I went through them all (and got rid of most of them, since my cooking style has changed so much from when we first got married) and typed out the ones I still wanted, and put those in the binder in their appropriate section.

I'm really glad I took the time to do this. All told, it probably took a few hours—spread across three days—going through everything and typing it out; I didn't want a partial list and need to do this twice.

But now I have my spreadsheet full of many recipes I've never made, and I am pretty confident that seeing those will keep them more 'top of mind' and I'll actually make more things.

Here's to better cooking in 2018!

Snow

Saturday morning when I woke up to snow, I excitedly exclaimed "SNOW! IT SNOWED!" like a giddy child. I imagine many of us were like that. There is just something about the first snow. And it was the perfect kind, too, where it was on the grass but not on the roads.

To my delighted surprise, I woke up this morning to find it lightly snowing. Jarrod wasn't awake yet, just me. I turned on the tree, put on some Christmas music, turned on my candle warmer, and sat down.

I noticed the squirrel was at my bird feeder. I grabbed my camera. I snapped away as he ate up my sunflower seeds. And he was such a ham, haha—at one point, as if he noticed me, he turned around at one point and didn't face me anymore. Then later, as if he embraced the whole exercise, he hopped to another rail of the deck and practically posed for a perfect side profile shot. It made me laugh out loud.

You know, I don't particularly enjoy the squirrel eating my birdseed. I mean, it's for the birds, not for the squirrels. My biggest gripe about the squirrels is how quickly they eat the bird food; I have had full feeders when I go to bed, and then drained by morning. But aside from sending Josie out on the deck to terrorize the squirrels every once in a while, there's nothing else I'd really do about it. I could never hurt a squirrel, because I realize they have to eat too. And this morning, with him sitting there in the snow, reinforced that.

After he was finished, the birds started flying in for breakfast. As always, it makes me smile that the birds eat breakfast and supper roundabout when we do. A cardinal couple came along, and I was able to snap those real quick. Cardinals are so beautiful in the snow. They were followed by some juncos and finches. And then the squirrel came back, and I was kind of happy to see him again. Merry Christmas little squirrel, congratulations you won me over, enjoy the bird food.

Yay tree!

The old tree.

We finally bought a new Christmas tree this year. Our previous tree was a hand-me-down from my parents. It served us well, but was a very big and FULL tree; larger than we would like. But, beggars can't be choosers, so we used it ever since we got married. But the thing weighed about 80 pounds. With Jarrod's back being more sensitive to strain ever since his car accident, it's not good for him to carry this thing upstairs.

He brought it up, set it up and plugged it in. All that to find out about 1/3 of the lights were out. And it wasn't all in one spot, like one strand, it was all over the tree. That was it; we're getting a new tree.

The new tree!

We had very specific criteria for what we wanted, and it turned out finding a tree was harder than I thought. On Cyber Monday I bought the tree. 

We got it on Wednesday! Fast shipping. I started fluffing it up, something that I actually enjoy for some weird reason. I've always been the tree fluffer, even when I was younger. 

Time to decorate! I had been using the same ribbon on my tree for 3 years, was it time for a new look? Not to mention, the ribbon I had would not "fit" right on the new tree, since it was much narrower. I decided to combine some old gold mesh I weaved in between the ribbon, bought some new silver ribbon, and added some poinsettias to the look (and thus had the "Silver and Gold" song from Rudolph stuck in my head for days.) I had to make a new bow for the top and added the flower to tie it all together.

I LOVE the way it turned out! I am so glad I chose to go with a new look for the new tree. I still have all my s'more ornaments on there! Never gonna give those up because they're so darn adorable. They still make them too, which makes me happy. Also, previously we always set up the tree in the front room because it was too wide for our living room. By default we did the same with the new tree, until Sunday when I pointed out we could swap the recliner and the tree and be able to enjoy the tree in the living room. I'm so glad we did!

S'mores everywhere!

The injured cardinal

I shared this on Facebook, but yesterday I saw a cardinal sitting just a foot from the house on the deck. He wasn't moving, so I grabbed my Nikon and started taking photos.

I think he flew into the glass door, because there were some feathers stuck on the glass. They were still there this morning, even; must have been a hard hit.

He just sat there, sort of dozing off at times, for over 10 minutes while I took photos of him. I think he was kind of out of it and needed the time to recoup before flying off. I inched closer and closer to the glass door and he never moved a muscle. He could not have cared less that I was there.

I started to get a little worried I might have a dead bird on my hands again. On Wednesday, I found a dead junco in the front yard. No idea what happened to it, it was still very intact and clean. I was worried—until I noticed the feathers on the door—the cardinal might be sick or dying too. I think he hit on the right side of his head, too, because a few feathers around his eyes were smashed and ruffled.

Josie came over at one point to investigate, too. I shared the photo of her staring at him on her Instagram account and realized something that should have been obvious: not everyone knows what a cardinal is.

I know I've mentioned her Instagram account before, and since we/she has friends all over the world, I had multiple comments saying they'd never seen a bird like that.

Cardinals are so common here, I never really gave much thought that cardinals weren't like a 'northern hemisphere' kind of bird or something, I figured you might find them in parts of Europe too. But turns out they only live in parts of the US and Mexico. 

They really are beautiful birds, when the sunlight shines on those red feathers it is such a beautiful color. And when I think about it, our area is home to a lot of colorful, beautiful birds. How lucky we are!

Hamilton

I am excited to say: I scored us some tickets to see Hamilton!

Single tickets went on sale this morning at 9am. I almost forgot about it, but I checked in around 9:30. 

For those unaware, Hamilton has been the hottest show on Broadway since last year. Everyone says it is a really great show, and the music is great. It's finally going on tour, and tickets sell quick. The Fox (of which I am on their email list) excitedly announced—what feels like a year ago—they were one of the US cities chosen for the tour. 

This morning was just nuts. I heard there was a line at the box office with well over 400 people that went on for blocks. Trying to buy them online was a chore in and of itself too. 

I was immediately placed in a "virtual waiting room" due to the high demand. It said DO NOT refresh your browser, it would automatically refresh as I moved up. I had no idea where I was at in the queue, I could have been #30 or #800 for all I know. Eventually, I was shown the calendar with the performance times to choose from. The Saturday shows were already sold out (mind you, this was less than an hour after tickets started.) Oh boy...

I picked a show, and picked the cheapest seats available, and then got an error screen of sorts saying "Unable to reserve your seats at this time. Please try again." blah blah blah. I tried, and tried, and tried, with that message coming up every time. The system was just that bogged down. It said to try calling Metrotix too, which I gave a shot, and got a busy signal. No surprise there. While I tried, 3 more shows sold out.

Finally, over an hour and a half later, after trying different dates and different sections, after receiving that message I don't know how many times, I got a screen with two seats on them. I had no idea where they were, but I didn't care at that point. At first, I honestly didn't even know what date I ended up with because I had tried so many different combinations. I clicked to Proceed. Then the countdown began, the god-awful "you must complete your entire order in 8:00 minutes flat or you lose your seats" countdown. I had my wallet next to me, prepared for this. Except, turned out, the password I thought was correct was not working. Aaahh! So, still while the 8:00 minutes is counting down, I had to do a Forgot Password thing. Log into my email I used for this. Get the new password. Sign in. Type in my credit card number. And press send, lest I end up back in the perpetual "unable to reserve your seats at this time" mess. I feel stressed out just remembering it! 

But I did it! Whew. It's weird because it feels like an accomplishment, haha. I bought the tickets, and we are going, and I'm stoked! I told my friend I bet they would be sold out by the afternoon, and I was right on that one. By 2:00 pm, they were gone. 

5 hours to sell out 23 performances. Wow.

#dogsofinstagram

Storytime!

So, Josie has her own Instagram account, if you didn't know that. She has over 600 followers from all over the world, most of them being cairn terriers like her. I know, it's mega dorky and probably lists me in the crazy-dog-mom column, but it's actually quite fun. It's hard to explain, but after a while, you kind of start to feel a connection with these other dog owners. Some dogs have actually started sending each other postcards in the mail. Back in May, I actually met a woman from California who is a sweet lady and owner of 4 cairn terriers (who follow Josie, and we follow them too.) It all came about because in one of her photos, she mentioned they were prepping for a trip to Purina Farms for a big event. I messaged her saying I lived nearby, and she wanted to meet up! It was great! 

Today, one of Josie's Scottish cairn pals had a photo saying they were raising money for cystic fibrosis.

Record scratch... what!? Really? I had to reload the picture twice to make sure my eyes weren't making things up.

They had a link in the profile for their little charity type thing. I sent them a private message and got a reply from the dog's mom, who has CF. She was pretty excited I had reached out.

But wow. Like, what are the odds? How amazing, that I would 'meet' someone from Scotland with CF via my dog's Instagram account? Crazy.

Friday Fast 5

1. A couple weeks back, I got sunburnt in 5 major spots while we were at the Lake. It sucked.
2. Speaking of that, and my deep regret of not being more diligent of putting on sunscreen, remember "The Sunscreen Song"? If not, here's a link for reminder. That song's been on my brain a lot in light of my sunburn. I liked it back in 1999, but I admit that as I get older, more and more pieces of advice in it ring true. 
3. Allow me to nerd out for a second here... but I play this video game on my iPad called Hay Day. It's a cute farming game. I've been playing it for two years, it's the longest I've ever played a game, and I still love it. The game is currently celebrating its 5th birthday, and the developers are making a big deal and having fun with it. But really, what an accomplishment! When was the last time you heard of anyone playing Trivia Crack? Or Farmville? Phone games typically burst on the scene, have a huge following for a year—if they're lucky—and then get deleted, but it's rare that a game has staying power to last this long. They still update the game and add new content, which definitely helps, and I am always seeing new farms. It's just a great little game and I hope it'll stay around another 5 years.
4. We need better Asian restaurants out here. China King is not cutting it. Jarrod and I love Asian food, and we both constantly wish we had either a Thai or Vietnamese place. Or both, but I won't get too greedy, haha. Overall, though, I think we just need more restaurant choices in general, places that aren't fast food. But if they were Asian restaurants, that would be great. 
5. I saw a young woman at work today who was wearing a light yellow dress, and dark blue underwear. I feel like young women these days never wear slips under their dresses anymore, like no one's even heard of them! I wish I could send out a PSA or something, begging the young ladies of today to please buy a damn slip (or learn to better match the color of your underwear with the color of your garment.) I'm tired of seeing so many outlines or knowing the color of your underwear. It's not proper, and there's a simple solution. Most of all I guess I'm just baffled at how much they seemingly don't care about this. Seriously, do none of you turn around in the mirror, hold your dress against yourself, and check if your underwear are visible through the cloth? Come on!

30 Weekend

It all started on Friday. You already heard about the "Doughnut Debacle" of Friday morning. Jarrod tried to surprise me with breakfast, and I ruined it. Oh man, little did I know the surprises that were in store...

Around 11 a.m. he called me upstairs from my office. He had a card, wrapped gift, and suitcase set out for me. He wanted to give me my gift early, and then told me I needed to pack for the night. We were going to stay somewhere, but that was all he told me. The original plan (for Saturday morning) was I was supposed to go to the mall with my mom. That was made up and not happening. Mom and dad were watching the dog, but we had to come back mid-Saturday because they couldn't watch her all weekend. When I said "Huh, I wonder what they're up to, I wonder why." he replied "I don't know, I think it was something with the Corvette Club."

So I finished work at 1:00, met with a lady at church, called mom, and we headed out around 2:30.

I still didn't know where we were headed, but we ended up at the Moonrise Hotel in the Loop. We've stayed there once before during another staycation, which this kind of was in itself. We were both getting hungry, but I found out we had a dinner reservation at 6:00. Again, I had no idea where.

Staring at the chocolate...

We walked to dinner about three blocks away, which was at... The Melting Pot! We've never been, but it was great. It's definitely an "experience" as they call it. The food was so good, but there was so
much, both of us felt ridiculously full afterwards. We did their four-course thing and started with the cheese, had a salad, then our meats, then chocolate for dessert. Our waitress brought me a rose, as well, which was a nice touch. Jarrod couldn't remember if he added that to his reservation or not, lol! It wasn't on the bill, so I guess it was from them since they knew it was my birthday.

We walked back to our hotel to go to the rooftop bar, which is a really cool spot if you're never been. It was a nice night out too.

Saturday morning we had breakfast at the hotel before heading onto other surprises. Ever since we left on Friday I was so excited to see what in the world Jarrod had planned! It was all in his hands, I had no clue what we would be doing.

So we left the hotel to head to the art museum, yay! We walked through most of it, except the new addition since we did that last time. Jarrod kept saying he had to watch our time, so we went to the second floor to check out the American and Native American art. It wasn't that great and I blazed through it. Jarrod kind of lingered a little bit. We finished up a bit early and I felt up to walking back to the truck; he had to park far away, but it was all downhill. We headed to lunch which was at...

Mai Lee in Brentwood, a Vietnamese place we wanted to try. We both got our usual pho and it was delicious! I had commented as we pulled up maybe we should check out Total Wine if we had time. Our lunch only took 30 minutes so we definitely did, and apparently needed to...

Total Wine is impressive, from a wine standpoint. Since we're more beer people, I'd say Friar Tuck's is better for that, but both are good places. It's a shame we don't have something like that closer to here. Anyways, I picked up a bottle of wine recommended by Wanda, and Jarrod got some beers. It took a while to check out, but then we were on our way home.

Driving home, Jarrod said I should go ahead and do my aerobika because he didn't think I'd have much time for my vest before we had to turn around and head back out to... whatever else he had planned. So I did. He also suggested I grab a hat before we left.

We pulled into town, up the road, turned onto our road. And there were a bunch of cars, which I kind of wondered about. But it's not uncommon for our neighbors at the end of the street to have a bunch of people over, so it wasn't too weird. Then I saw our garage door was open... and there were a ton of people in our driveway!

How it looked from my view.

Oh-my-goodness. How amazing it was! There were so many people here, from all over, to surprise me for my birthday! It was so awesome. I got out of the truck, and my dad was the first to greet me with a hug. I couldn't hold it in, I started crying. I was so moved. It was a bit of a whirl, I can't even really remember if I made it back around to Jarrod to give him a hug or say something, but oh man. What an amazing feeling.

How it looked from everyone else's view.

I walked inside to find my grandma Watson had made it down here too, which was awesome. The house was decorated to a T with banners and photos, an awesome little board with all kinds of facts about the year I was born, a lovely cake, food, drinks, the deck had tables and a popup tent over it, and I was told to also go downstairs. I found a big 30 covered in photos, and a jungle of balloons (that's what I'll call it, lol) with pictures of me hanging on them.

The rest of the day was spent mingling with everyone. I tried so hard to spend a little bit of time with every person. I wished I could have sat down and spent like an hour with everyone, but that's just not possible. Slowly, people started heading on their ways, and it was just a group of our friends that remained.

I told Jarrod I wanted the whole backstory to all of this, once everyone left. So once they did, he started diving into that...

Turns out he'd been planning this since February. February! And even so, he said that he knew he wanted to do this for me before my 29th birthday. Wow. That's just... awesome.

For the longest time, he was trying to figure out how to get me out of the house, so everyone would have plenty of time to set up our house, and determined that us staying somewhere Friday would be best and seem least suspicious.

Turns out while we were eating breakfast at the hotel, his mom and dad, my parents, and Julia all got to our house around 9:00 a.m. that morning to start setting up.

He had started asking for addresses from people months ago because, as he told them, "I can't find the address book, and I obviously can't ask Jamie where it is." Ha! Formal invitations were sent out—who knew?—with RSVP to his mom, who was even out of town during a lot of the planning leading up to this.

Then all kinds of minute details came into play...

Like the day before, when I called my mom? He had JUST gotten off the phone with them, like right as I was calling her. He was in the garage and had called them to tell them what the deal was so their stories would match, and they should say that they had a Corvette Club thing and that was why they couldn't watch the dog all weekend. Wow, what are the odds. And just in time.

When we were leaving the art museum, we were ahead of schedule, and he was debating every little way to draw it out more. That's why we went to check out the American art, but then I rushed through it. He tried to look at some pieces longer, not because he was interested, but because he wanted to kill time, haha! And then I said I felt up to walking to the truck, which was perfect because that took more time, lol.

We pretty much NEEDED to go to Total Wine after lunch, because otherwise we would arrived at home way too soon. The invite said for people to be here at 2:30 sharp, with the plan that we would get here at 3:00. Jarrod even doubled back and looked over a aisles more than once to kill more time so we wouldn't be too early.

And there were so many other little things.

It makes sense, now, why he was on his phone more that day. And why it wasn't synced up with his truck, something he almost always does. I had noticed those things, but didn't think much of them.

I think a lot of people were wondering if I was truly surprised, but I was! It was such a great day, and made me feel so special and so very loved by so many people.

(If you haven't seen my video on Facebook, I posted one the other day thanking everyone for coming out and telling a little bit of this story.)

Doughnut Debacle

I have to tell the following story, because it is just too funny...

I woke up at 5:30am coughing; decided to get up and go do my treatment. Once I was done, I was really awake, and decided going back to bed was pointless. I thought to myself I wonder when Shulte's opens? They open at 6am. It was 6:05am, perfect!

I threw on some clothes and left to go get fresh doughnuts as a nice little treat and surprise (and it happens to be National Doughnut Day, which is a total coincidence.) All the while, Jarrod is still asleep, he has no idea I left. I got back, doughnuts in hand, made covfefe, and sat on the couch to wait for Jarrod to get up and get ready for work.

He finally got up at 6:45, which meant he was running late. He came out to the living room to find me sitting there, on my iPad, and asked "What are you doing?" I told him how I woke up early, blah blah blah. But that I'd been to Shulte's and back, and I had doughnuts! He asked why I didn't come wake him up sooner (since he'd be kinda late for work.) I didn't realize the time.

Then he laid down on the couch—weird, seeing as he was just commenting about being late—I asked what was up. He told me... He actually didn't have to go to work, he took the day off. And he was planning to make me breakfast while I was doing my vest (which takes 30 minutes.) He had no idea I had gotten up early, only noticed I wasn't actually in bed right before he got up at 6:45, hoped I was vesting and he could surprise me. But no.

Oh man... what are the odds. My surprise ruined his surprise.

A Dying Mall In America

I'd say Chesterfield Mall is on its last months, I'd expect that it will be closed by the end of the year.

I went there on Thursday... and what a depressing sight it was.

I knew the place was in foreclosure, with another company trying to buy it, but I didn't know it was that bad. In the time since I was last there, which was probably sometime in the fall, I'd venture to guess that at least 60% of the stores have closed. Store after store after store was gated off or boarded up. Even one of the anchors, Dillard's, had closed it's doors and left.

I remember how I felt the very last time I ever walked through Crestwood Mall. That mall was "my mall," the one we went to most often. The last time I went to it I felt a mix of sadness and disbelief, as in How could this suddenly get this bad? And that is the same way I felt yesterday in what might be my last time going to Chesterfield Mall. It's just so depressing.

I walked in and headed to Auntie Anne's for a pretzel. With nothing to look up at, since so many of the store signs are missing, you look down. You notice the floor tiles are cracked everywhere. Has it always been like this? The carousel creaks to life for one lonely child and parent. Everywhere you look, workers are sitting down, bored out of their minds. Store counters are unattended until someone actually wanders in the store. The cooks at restaurants sit around in booths staring at their phones.

When I got to Auntie Anne's, there was no one there; no one at the register, no one making pretzels. It kind of looked like there was a guy in the back watching TV, but by then I had decided I wasn't going to pay $4 for a pretzel that had likely been sitting there for hours. I turned around and took the escalator back up. What used to be a kids play area next to it was a barren floor, the escalator showed its age and made cranking sounds I've never really noticed before. I wandered in one store, but by then I was no longer in any mood to shop.

I can get frustrated with crowds, but I realized that part of the enjoyment (and surely part of the marketing strategy) of a mall is the hustle and bustle. When there is a good mix of people and talking and activity, it pushes you to keep walking and shopping. When you can walk across the entire mall and maybe encounter 50 people, and it's practically silent save for the loudspeaker music, it doesn't inspire you to do anything except walk right back out the door and go somewhere else that feels, I don't know... alive? And as I pointed out, you start to notice all the bad things, like the cranky escalator that would usually be drowned out by people, and the lack of people is emphasized even more.

I feel like it should have been obvious that constructing two outlet malls right down the road would be the doom of that place, but somehow other people felt differently. Outlet malls have evolved over the years, with some stores selling the same things they'd sell in a typical mall, and others selling different merchandise but still quality and nothing wrong with it. They're not quite the 'last year's trends' or 'small defects' stores with discounts beyond belief that they used to be.


It was a sad experience. I don't know that I'll go back either because... what's the point? And say what you will about consumerism, it's still sad and unfortunate when a mall has to close; jobs are lost, the potential tax revenue is gone. Now granted, this is Chesterfield, and I'm pretty confident that Chesterfield is going to be just fine, but still. Warren County lost a huge source of revenue when their outlet mall closed. I mean, when was the last time someone asked you if you wanted to go to Warrenton?

It'll be interesting to see if they're able to do something with the space, like for offices or housing or something creative, or if in the end it will get torn down like Crestwood. It's a good location for something, but what that something is remains to be seen. It won't be a mall, that's for sure.

Turtles

As far back as I can remember, I have always liked turtles. I'm not sure why, I can't explain it. And if the Buddhists' version of creation is correct, I was probably a turtle in a previous life.

But now I've realized just how perfect it is for me to love turtles.

In July, I had a nurse while I was in the hospital named Mihiri. She was originally from Sri Lanka. I had her as my day nurse for 5 days, so we got to know each other. I thought she was quite funny, and she was a good nurse. I think she enjoyed me as a patient too, because after the first couple days we would usually chat a little bit when she had to come in my room. She appreciated me being so involved in my care and asking questions. One day when my doctor was in the hall after just leaving my room, I remembered something. I called out there, she was still there, and told her a prescription we forgot to discuss. Mihiri commented, to my doctor, "Isn't she good? I love it, I love how she is not afraid to speak up and be involved." My doctor agreed, and said it was unfortunately rare.

So every time I go in the hospital, I take my stuffed animal turtle Bernie. He's the perfect size and shape that he feels like hugging a little pillow. I've had Bernie for... a long time. I can't remember what year it was, but it was the first time I had to be hospitalized at Cardinal Glennon. We had just switched doctors, because our insurance would no longer cover Children's Hospital, so I was a bit down about being in a new place with new doctors (new everyone, really) and on top of that I was sick enough to go in the hospital. The gift shop, at the time, was a tiny room on the way to the cafeteria. Mom, dad, and me went down there to get some food and I commented how cute that turtle was high on a shelf in the window.

Well, sometime later, my parents surprised me with a gift bag... they had bought me that turtle in the window. I named him Bernie and he's been my "hospital buddy" ever since.

Mihiri really liked my turtle, which I usually keep at the foot of my bed during the day; he fits perfectly down there and is out of the way. She was commenting about it and was saying "No, I'm serious. I really think I want to get one for my daughter." Her daughter, she had told me the day before, had graduated college and lived in Maryland. "It would be a nice little gift, just a little something different. A nice reminder 'Slow and steady.'" she said.

I can't get those words out of my head.

What a perfect motto for my life's journey with CF. When I get sick, it's a serious thing, and it's a long, slow battle back to health. Exercising... another great example. On Monday, I had a really hard time walking on the treadmill. It was discouraging. Tuesday was a little better, but I was really huffing and puffing trying to walk at a good 2.7 mph speed. Then yesterday: bam! I could walk 3.0 mph and I was NOT totally beat by the end of it. Slow and steady...

This is also kind of topical as the Olympics were this year. No athlete who went there magically became good at their sport overnight, or quickly. It took years and years of slow progress to get to where they are.

I'm dealt with setbacks all the time. It is SO hard to see the big picture sometimes and see that yes, I'm doing better than I was 3 years ago, and that that's a good thing to focus on. But I have to stick with my treatments, I have to exercise, there are no shortcuts for any of this. Because sure enough, slowly and steadily, I can continue to improve or at the very least maintain my health. I saw the best lung function numbers I've seen in years back in February. I could reach that again sometime.

Slow and steady...

Bernie.

Tale of an Undecided Voter

For the entire election season, I have been consistent in my immense distaste for both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

For weeks, I have been adamant that on election day, I would go to the polls. I would vote in the state races, but I would be leaving the box for president blank.

Then today was the day.

Usually about a week before the election, you start hearing musings such as "If anyone is still undecided at this point, that's ridiculous" or "How on earth could you not know who you're going to vote for at this point?"

Up until this morning I was steadfast in my decision. Then I felt like my protest of not voting wasn't much of a protest at all, and I needed to pick someone. After all, it's not like anyone counts up the amount of votes not cast. I texted a couple people in a state of panic over the bundle of nerves I found in my stomach.

In the afternoon I drove to my polling place and parked.

And I sat in my car mindlessly browsing through my phone for 15 minutes. I wasn't looking at anything, it was just my cover up to avoid staring into space while I still was trying to decide what I was going to do.

I finally decided it was time to walk in; I couldn't delay this any longer.

I filled out my entire ballot, except for the first question. And I sat there for another 10 minutes staring at the boxes for president, trying to still decide what I wanted to do. Should I leave it blank? Should I pick someone?

I started to fill in a box. Immediately as I made my outline, my stomach dropped.

I filled in the box completely. And stared at my choice. For a moment, I thought of going and asking for a new ballot saying I had changed my mind. For a moment, I felt good about it. For a moment, I almost cried.

But I just sat and stared. Another 10 minutes. All the people who walked in with me had come and gone, new people coming and going.

In the end, I knew I had to get up at some point, just like I knew that eventually this day would get here. Walking to turn in my ballot, my inner voice was wondering if I had made a choice that I could be okay with.

I turned in my ballot. It's over, done. No going back. No redo's.

I think I made the right choice for me.

A Wonderful Vacation

Jarrod and I returned Sunday afternoon from a wonderful, nearly perfect anniversary vacation to Branson. We are celebrating five years of marriage!

We started our vacation Thursday morning eating breakfast at Cowan's. Jarrod had never been there before, so it was high time we went, haha! It had been years since I had gone there too.

A really beautiful sunrise Friday morning from our window.

Friday we rented a boat and went out on Table Rock Lake for four hours. The weather forecast was a little iffy, with a 40% chance of pop up rain/storms, but it turned out great. It wasn't too windy, it didn't rain or storm. It was pretty hot and humid, so the water felt good.

Saturday, on our actual anniversary, we drove towards the dam to a viewing area you could pull off onto. There was a road we found, and we weren't entirely sure where it would end up, but it came out down near Tanycomo, where trout fisherman could wade in. This fisherman was nearby and he became the perfect subject for taking photos:

Oh, and: goose butts. Hahahahaha!

We were in Table Rock State Park, even though we were next to Lake Tanycomo (which, Jarrod informed me: Tanycomo is named for being in Tany County, like Tany Co. Mo.? Someone must have been bored when they named that lake.) There was an entrance point to the trail system and we decided to do one of the loops, and I crossed one thing off my bucket list: go hiking! Yay! I brought my camera with me, and was having fun taking pictures along the way. But the bigger deal here is that I hiked! I kept a good pace and of course I was breathing hard at times, but I'm so happy I was able to do it! It had some steep inclines and uneven rocky terrain, but Jarrod said that it was very well-marked and a pretty good trail. But next time, we'll bring bug spray and do a Map My Route at the beginning for fun. Live and learn, haha.

Light in the forest.

We had dinner at the White River Fish House, which is actually Bass Pro's restaurant down on the Branson Landing. It was really good! I would recommend it. Afterwards we came back to our hotel bar to enjoy a cocktail and to our surprise, around 9:00pm a piano player arrived to play on the baby grand.

He was SO enjoyable! It was absolutely delightful listening to him. His improvisation was incredible. He asked for requests and would play from memory, or make it up, or a little of both. He never looked at a piece of music the entire time, it was all in his head. One woman asked for "Dream A Little Dream of Me" and he got up to hum a few notes with her to establish he remembered the song, sat back down and said "Ok, I got it. I'll throw in a nice bridge in the middle." He came over and asked me for a request at one point, and asked if I sang. I said "Ehh... sometimes." He said I looked like a singer or a dancer, he thought maybe I was "in the biz" there because I "just had that smile, that confidence about you." Aw... :) I requested "Singin' In the Rain," and he made that one up as he went but it was spot on. He played ragtime, musicals, he played pop songs in the style of a jazz tune, he played a jazz tune in the style of a waltz. It was wonderful.

Turns out he is there most Friday or Saturday evenings, and when I looked him up online, found in his bio that he has worked with numerous television shows/specials as a composer, conductor, or musician; Dick van Dyke, the Tonight Show, Matlock, Donnie and Marie Osmond, Sammy Davis, Roy Clark, Jack Benny, the Academy Awards, plus tons more and he moved to Branson back in the 90s to play and conduct for Andy Williams at his show there. Now he plays at the Chateau on the Lake. If you are ever in Branson on a Friday or Saturday evening and you want to hear a talented jazz pianist, you have to drive over to Chateau to listen to this guy.

Sunday we ate breakfast and played one last round of mini-golf before heading home; mini golf is one of my favorite things to do in Branson since there's an abundance of courses. The breakfast spot was Billy Gail's, which came highly recommend by my mom's friend, Gwen. They offer free coffee while you wait, and it was possibly the best pancake I've had in my life. Yes, pancake, singular, because the pancakes are colossal. They're larger than the plate and bring up visions of Uncle Buck trying to flip a pancake with a snow shovel.

Me and my pancake. Seriously, how do they flip this thing over?

All in all our trip was so wonderful: great weather, great time, things went well, hardly any hiccups, and pretty much all of the places we ate at were good or awesome.

If you'd have told me five years ago that on our 5th wedding anniversary I would be hiking through the Ozarks, I don't think I'd have believed you. Actually, I know I wouldn't have because back then I wouldn't have felt it would be possible for me to do it. These past five years married to Jarrod have been so good, and I look forward to many more.

Sunset from the lookout point on Saturday evening.

The Driveway

This morning was kind of a big deal. It snowed an inch or two, and it was the perfect day to stay in and bake cupcakes (or brew beer, if you're Jarrod.)

So Jarrod made us breakfast and then went downstairs to brew. In the meantime I did my treatment as normal, but I was having a pretty good morning, I wasn't coughing a ton... 

So I had a crazy idea... I decided I was going to try to shovel the snow off the driveway. And I did! I shoveled the driveway! I've never done that since we moved here. I had to take one break, to come inside and sit with my oxygen on for about 5-10 minutes, then I went back out and finished. I was getting pretty worn out during the last half, and audibly reminded myself "You can do this... There's just a little bit left." And then I was done and I came inside to sit with my oxygen hose on again while my heart slowed down and my oxygen sats. came back up. 

I went down to tell Jarrod, since he had no idea, and he was surprised! And very happy for me. I am so damn proud of myself, I can't even tell you. I feel like I've had a slight grin on my face all day. Take that, CF! 

I did that! 

Friday Fast 5

1. Today was a cold but sunny day, so it's not so bad. The piggies were out and about at Todd Geisert Farms when I stopped by to get us some bacon. It made me smile watching them trot around and play in the field.
2. Jarrod and I went to the Star Wars opening last night. We were very, very excited; it's not every day that there is a new Star Wars movie. We decided to head to the theater about 40 minutes ahead of time, and good thing we did. The theater was probably about 80% full already! It was a relief that we ended up with good seats, and by 'good seats' I mean that we weren't sitting by any crying children, we weren't by anyone talking, we weren't by any obnoxious teens. Thank goodness. We both really liked it, I loved BB-8, and I'll leave it at that. Spoilers are easy to come by these days, and I am not going to add to that problem. 
3. Due to the movie, I have also had the Imperial March (the Darth Vader song) pop in my head multiple times a day all week long. It's getting a bit old...
4. I've got all my Christmas shopping done, and I am very glad for that. And, I accomplished at least three-fourths of it online. The last thing I want to do is go out shopping this final weekend before Christmas. No thanks.
5. Yesterday, I had errands to run and my final one was shopping at Aldi. I got there and realized I forgot my bags, then realized my quarter for a cart wasn't in my car—I usually keep one in the cup-holders for this purpose. I dug through my purse but didn't find one there either. I was disappointed, and resigned myself to the fact that I would have to grab two things I absolutely needed and could carry, and come back another time to get the rest. I got out of my car, and this older man said "Do you need a cart?" I said sure, and he pushed it my way and said "Merry Christmas!" and I replied "Thank you sir." It just really, really made my day. The prospect of having to return to the same store a day later... sigh... not fun. I tried to pass on the goodwill when I was finished, but there wasn't anyone going in the store at that time needing a cart. So maybe next time.