Boys Will Be Boys

Three of Eric's groomsmen were college buddies and they happen to make it back to Arkadelphia from time to time for miscellaneous events.  This week was one of those events.  We heard from Ian over the weekend asking if him and his friend could stay at the house. Most definitely. They arrived Monday night and it was such a good visit.  Turns out another friend, Matt, was in town too so he spent a lot of time at the house (as well as a lot of other people).  I think it was really good for Eric.  I'm blessed to work in a job with 7 other people around my age and in the same stage of life. We all get along really well, and a couple of my best friends work in this office.  I get to see my friends everyday and have fun conversations.  Eric doesn't have that opportunity.  He works with some great people, and a couple of them are his age, but they are never in the office at the same time and that sort of thing. Once graduation came most of his friends moved off. So I love weeks/weekends like this when some of his buddies are in town and he can have good, quality time with them -even if my house is left in a complete wreck :) 

Never Run With Scissors

(Warning. If the talk if injuries and blood makes you a little squeamish, you might want to skip a few paragraphs.)

     In my office, we have to work two Saturday's in April. We do not get paid overtime or anything, so instead we get comp time (which I love).  Last Friday, I thought I would take some of that comp time and leave work at noon to get some chores done around the house and fix a nice dinner so Eric and I could settle in for a date night when he got home from work.  While grocery shopping for dinner, I remembered this article I saw on Pinterest that said putting water and vinegar in your microwave for a few minutes can help clean it.  (Confession: I never wipe down our microwave and we do not have a bowl cover contraption, so it is pretty nasty.).  We do not own vinegar so I quickly ran to grab some, not looking at the type of lid but just looking at price.  

     I apparently should have checked out the type of lid on the vinegar.  You know how milk has the pull tab to open the lid?  Our vinegar was the same way. Except when I tried to pull the tab it broke.  So, the next logical step was to see if I could pull it with my teeth (y'all, don't forget I am from Southeast Arkansas.  This might not have been your next logical step, but we do a lot of things differently in DeWitt).  Well, biting it didn't work. So the next logical step was to try and pry scissors under the tab to rip it off.  To do this, I propped my right hand on the top of the bottle to steady it and pushed the scissors under the tab with all my might with my left hand. Well, the scissors slipped and I stabbed myself in the right hand with a pair of (semi dull) scissors.  It took me a second to realize what I just did. I actually hesitated to put pressure on the wound because the only towel nearby was my favorite kitchen towel and I didn't want to ruin it with blood stains. I quickly decided it wasn't that great of a towel and grabbed it to apply pressure while looking for my phone to call Eric.  I was short and to the point with my phone call (which I conducted by speaker phone while hanging over our sink with my hand raised in the air. What a mess I was).  By my call, he thought I had cut my finger off. Oops.  After calling him I plopped down in the floor waiting for him to get home. Once he arrived he stood me up and told me we needed to wash my hand of. What?? Heck no. No way was I looking at it and he was not touching it.  This thought freaked me out so much I looked down at my hand and saw the blood. And then I told Eric "I am about to pass out".  I don't think he believed me. Until two seconds later when I was laying limp over the sink. That will show him.  I passed out again on the trip to the door so he could take me to see if I needed stitches.  Since the stab was so deep (I'll spare the gross details, but we could tell it was at least an inch deep), the doctor didn't want to do stitches.  Apparently deep wounds are almost guaranteed to get infected, and if it is stitched it causes more troubles. So I got a new Tetanus shot and antibiotics and we were on our way.  By the way, Tetanus shots hurt like the dickens.  Who knew??

     The most interesting part of this experience is learning to do things with just one hand.  (Have you ever had to shower with just one hand? Or button/unbutton jeans? Almost impossible.) What did I learn from this experience? That I will never use a pair of scissors again. 

Or at least for a few months.

Oh, and just so you know, Eric was able to open the vinegar bottle that night and we tried the water/vinegar mixture out on the microwave. It worked! Sweet victory.  

A Little of This, A Little of That

     First, our neighbors have quieted down a lot. Thank goodness! Maybe its because we keep calling the cops and they keep getting arrested. Soon there won't be anyone left!  We heard a rumor their landlord told them they had to be out by this Friday. We will see about that.   
     As I have mentioned before, Eric is currently in seminary. He was a junior in college when we got married (I had just graduated) so he has been in school our whole marriage. For some reason, I had this idea in my silly head that I would see him more when he was in graduate school. That idea has blown up in my face this semester.  Silly Katie. I should know by now that any sort of school equals a busy, busy husband.  And I need to just get used to it, because he will most likely move on to doctoral work once he finishes his masters. The higher the degree, the busier I'm assuming.  Yesterday I had a bit of a mental wife breakdown and asked Eric to take the night off and he gladly agreed. We cooked a nice dinner, watched movies, talked, laughed, it was a great night. Once it was time for me to go to bed he had to stay up and work on some material for his classes. I am so glad he sacrificed a little sleep so we could hang out. I miss him.  
     Time to brag on my husband.  He is so, so smart. Really. I couldn't imagine having the passion he has for learning- And that is why he is in graduate school and I am not ;) But for real, almost every professor he has had in the past year has commented on how he is a level above and they cannot wait to see his doctoral work. I'm a proud wife. Maybe a wife who is a little intimidated by the 25+ page paper my husband just wrote and asked me to read that goes WAY over my head, but, I am still a proud wife :)
     We feel pretty strongly about Eric only working part-time while he is in graduate school so he has more time to focus on his studies. But that makes each month a struggle financially.  If we were better stewards with our money, it would still be a struggle but not near as much. We are both just so, so bad with handling money.  We talk about budgets and make budgets, but never stick to them.  Anyone have suggestions on ways that help you better manage your monies?  Thoughts on Dave Ramsey?

The Neighborhood...

Okay. When we moved in our cute, adorable, old, beautiful house we knew it wasn't in the best of best neighborhoods, but it was on a little street right off down town so nothing too crazy.  And it wasn't too crazy for the past 2 years. But my, oh my, has that changed.  There are several rental properties around our house, then an older lady and Larry.  Now let me introduce you to Larry.  First off, Larry is a great neighbor. We appreciate him so much. But that being said, Larry is an interesting character.  We often refer to Larry as "The Bee Man" because he makes and sells honey.  But Larry also spends 80% of his time sitting on his front porch in his camouflage watching the neighborhood. I kid you not.  Morning, day, and night, he mans his station. So though we did not move into the best of the best of neighborhoods, we have always felt safe with Larry on duty.  Larry lives two houses down from us and one of the rental proprieties in our neighborhood is between our houses.  A lady moved in recently, and her group of friends moved into the rental properties across the street. And they have been non-stop drama. Dumb.  They are SO loud.  The lady next door was evicted from her old apartment and didn't get to take any of her furniture with her, so they spend the majority of their time in the yard and on their porch so they have somewhere to sit. (Don't ask me how they have a TV I can see in their living room from the road but not a couch. Priorities, people.) She also has 3-5 kids. The number is still unclear.  We had been waiting for major drama to go down. And Monday it finally came. Her fellow was arrested, they yelled and talked about guns and shooting each other, the cops came back to her house twice, and we hid in our house and watched it all through our blinds.  Small town living, right?  The cops have been back twice since Monday. And yesterday they covered their whole porch with black trash bags so you could not see them (which was fine by me.) Except for the strange smells coming from their apartment.  Can you say sketchy?  Larry spent a good 2 hours at our house yesterday filling us in on the neighborhood gossip.  After all we learned, I am more than ready for these new neighbors of ours to hit the road and never come back. Hopefully they will be gone soon. I'm ready for a good nights rest that doesn't include falling to sleep to the bass from their music.  Annoying.

Update

A few days ago I posted about some things that had us very anxious. It turns out everything is a-okay, whew :) Last Sunday, I was in severe pain. Eric actually thought my appendix was rupturing, but I was being stubborn and just stayed home and roughed it out (I am my fathers daughter!). Come Tuesday, the strong pain was long gone but a constant pain was staying in my right lower abdomen so I went to the doctor. Turns out she agreed with Eric and sent me to the hospital for a CT scan of my appendix. Turns out my appendix was fine, but it appeared my Fallopian Tube was extremely inflamed and she wanted me to see my OBGYN to get an ultrasound. She suggested an egg might be "stuck", whatever that meant. Of course, this brought about all sorts of fears for us as I think it would in any young couple. My appointment wasn't until Monday (as in yesterday) so we had about 6 days to wait after my scans. I continued to be in extreme pain, and on top of that I had to work on Saturday. It was a stressful week! After our appointment yesterday we learned that last Sunday the pain I had was from a cyst rupturing on my right ovary. (Eric was so close with the appendix idea!). There was a lot of fluid still in my ovary and it has caused my Fallopian Tube to be highly inflamed, hence all this crazy pain. He sent me on my way with a steroid shot and lots of meds. I should feel better in 3 or so days, thank goodness! I do have 2 more cyst on my ovary but we aren't doing anything about those for the time being.
This past week has really brought Eric and I together closer as a couple. We didn't figure it was anything too bad, but you always have that fear. Eric was so great to me. Helping me around the house and reassuring me of his love. Eric and I have always had a passion for adoption (Eric is adopted if you didn't know) and I think even having the slightest of fears something could be wrong with me made us evaluate out family expectations even more. Lately I have been SO focused on having a baby. So much that I've probably became pretty selfish. I needed this time of questioning to open my heart to my true passions and convictions. Though we definitely still want to experience pregnancy and childbirth, my heart is finding that longing for adoption again. And I am loving it.


Tomorrow I'm going to try and post about our crazy neighbors. And by crazy, I mean CRAZY y'all. IEric and I have became the neighborhood crime watch party, so crazies be warned!

Anxious

I hate for this to be a "something is going on but I can't tell you" post, but here it is.  This week has been a really hard, confusing week for us.  We will know answers (hopefully) come next week, but until then my brain is not good company.  Any prayers for peace of mind and comfort would be greatly appreciated.  :)

It's Been Awhile...

We are still here. Promise.  I'm having a hard time committing to blogging. Probably because I do not feel like there is anything in our life worth blogging about. But here are some random thoughts.
Eric is in the final stretch of this term of grad school. I'm ready for it to be over since he is gone every Tuesday night for class in Little Rock.  When he worked at Game Stop he was gone at least 4 nights of the week. I learned to adjust to him being gone and enjoy being alone.  But that was a long time ago.  Now I do not know how I can survive every Tuesday night without being bored out of my mind!
My newest dilemma is to vacation or not to vacation this summer.  We really do not have the money for it. So I know the answer should be to not.  But golly do I long for a week away! I take vacation days here and there for work, but I have never really taken a week off. That sounds glorious. Plus, come June 1 I will have 3 weeks of paid vacation (thanks Ouachita!).  It's basically impossible to take a week long vacation from Mid July to November with my job. No, actually it is impossible.  So that doesn't leave much time to get 3 weeks in, does it? So maybe we should take a vacation in June, yes? Yes. :) Maybe.
I've been struggling with our family a lot in these past few weeks.  It is crazy to me how everyone can be such polar opposites! We love them all, and they are great to us. But sometimes it is just hard to understand their true intentions.
Bailey has gained a lot of weight. I feel like it came out of no where. Poor pup. I tried to tell myself she was still growing when we got her. But I've came to terms that she has just gained weight since she was 2 when she came to our home.  Oh how I love to fight the truth some times :)
Last year my MIL and Step Grandma-In-Law (confusing, right?) came to visit in April and helped us make our garden absolutely beautiful.  With my horrible gardening skills and the stinking heat of the summer, everything looked awful come the end of summer. I was convinced I had killed everything to the point of no return. But alas, last week tulips and roses began blooming. Here's to hoping I have more success this year!