I'm such a rebel

So, my doctors have told me that it's okay for me to still drink my beloved Coke (now Diet Coke, because one of the worst things cancer has done to my body... and yes, I understand the irony, considering that I have an inoperable tumor winding its way though my guts and threatening to kill me, but still, this is right up there with the worst things cancer has done to my body... is that regular soda is now sticky sweet and it makes me gaggy, so I've been relegated to the diet soda. I figure it's all good about the aspartame, since I already have the cancer.)

Anyway, as I was saying... My doctors have said that it's okay for me to still drink the soda, as long as I'm drinking a minimum of 64 oz of water a day, and a maximum of 12 oz of soda a day.

They're so cute.

Meanwhile, in the world I live in, if I can digest it, I am eating/drinking it. Which means...

Say hello to my little friend. (Also, don't worry about the weird angle of my thumb. My fingers are double jointed and my thumbs can look real special sometimes.)

This is my second 32 oz Diet Coke of the day. Both of them from McDonald's. Because I'd rather not get out of my car and walk into a gas station to buy a drink when it's 102. (Also, McD's makes the best french fries in the world. This is a no brainer.) Hello, drive-thru, I love you so!

Maybe tomorrow I'll flip the tables and guzzle water instead of caffeine, but today... I am a rebel. Maybe not a real hydrated rebel, but a rebel nonetheless. (And I did also drink two bottles of water, so it's not like I'm living on carbonated drinks full of caramel color alone.)

48 hours

It's 9:00 on Thursday night. By this time Saturday, I need to be packed and ready to go Sunday morning.

And, all of a sudden, I'm in a dead panic about Texas.

Am I doing laundry, or anything else even remotely productive in the way of packing/prepping? Uh... no. Instead, I'm sitting in my bed, eating ice cream and marathoning Covert Affairs on Netflix.

And when I'm done with this ice cream, I'm gonna give myself an Ativan chaser and get ready for bed.

I am soooooo not a real grownup.

I am turning into my second grade teacher

Mrs. Tubbs was my second grade teacher. She had a steel bolt reinforced refrigerator box that was painted mint green in the back of our classroom that was full of throw pillows. When we'd do well on our timed tests in the beginning of the week, she'd let us sit the tests out for the rest of the week and we had the option of sitting at our desks quietly or lounging about in the box. (One week - I stress, ONE week of my second grade career - I got 100% on the timed math test and got to sit in the box. Between not having to retake the test, and the "mystery" flavored Dum-Dum sucker I pulled out of the candy bowl as I went into the mint green, pillow-filled, haven from multiplication tables, that day was the highlight of that school year.)

Mrs. Tubbs was short. I mean, shooooooort. I mean, granted, I have always been tall, but no seven year old should be anywhere near as tall as her teacher. She had super curly hair, a gap between her front teeth, and I loved her with my whole heart.

She was sweet, and she was funny. She taught us patriotic songs and she let me stay after school to clean her erasers and help with bulletin boards.

Oh, and she stuffed EVERYTHING down the front of her shirt.

Need a dime? She'd pull one from her shirt. ... It was the most incredible magic trick I'd ever seen.

She was constantly stuffing and then pulling tissues out of her shirt. ... I'm pretty sure it took me half the school year to realize that she was using her bra to hold her money/tissues/keys, etc. (In her defense, it was the early 80's and polyester pants didn't come with pockets sewn into them. ... In mine, I was seven and hadn't really been aware of bosoms or bras to that point. I just thought her shirts had magical powers.)

Anyhoo... I just got up to throw away a thoroughly used up kleenex and... uh... threw not only that tissue out, but also a few more that I'd had stuffed into my bra for who even knows how long. (In my defense, all I'm wearing are either yoga pants and t-shirts or nightgowns, neither of which come with pockets sewn into them. ... And because I have to sleep in a bra - thanks to the port that has changed my life in so many ways - there's really no telling how long they'd been hanging out in there.)

I walked out of the pantry and told Judy she may as well start calling me Mrs. Tubbs right now, and, knowing my childhood fascination with Mrs. Tubbs' magical shirts, she asked how many wadded-up tissues I'd found in my bra... Four.

I'm telling you, the stuff you learn during those formative years really does stick with you.

"Chemo Brain" is a real thing

So, I have this awesome new antibiotic that goes with the "infection" I was diagnosed with yesterday. (I have no idea what kind of infection this is. I gave a urine sample. Said sample was full of blood. - Which is gross, but not unexpected, as it's a documented/expected side effect. - I'm not sure if it's another UTI or some other matter. All I know is that I have an infection that merits a round of antibiotics for the next week. Yay for drugs that provide a false immune system! (Now, not to digress, but... On the subject of UTI's. Who goes 36 years without a UTI and then possibly contracts two UTI's within 3 weeks of each other? This girl. Thanks, Chemo. You're the best.)

Anyway, I have now been diagnosed with a condition that requires antibiotic intervention.

And this isn't just any old antibiotic. It comes with its own set of (bizarro) rules: Take every twelve hours, do not take within 2 hours of ingesting dairy or a multi-vitamin, avoid sunlight, as medication has shown an increased rate of sunburn in those taking the drug.

I AM NOT KIDDING YOU.

I took my first pill last night around 8:00. (Luckly, I had spaghetti for dinner last night, so I was void of all things dairy in my system. Oh, and the sun had gone down. So, that dosage was relatively risk-free.)

This morning, I was awake early and spent some time in bed planning out my 8:00 AM dosage. (I kid you not. I lie in bed and think about these things. ... Who's kidding who? I lie in bed and think about a lot of things these days. But this morning, I was thinking about my new pill and I was planning my breakfast around it.)

I wanted yogurt, but knew that would be bad. I wanted a bagel with cream cheese (the top half, because that's my favorite), but that would also be naughty. (Not to mention, there's not a bagel - or cream cheese - in this house.) Then my mind wandered to biscuits and gravy. ... Uh, no. White flour is the enemy right now. (Have I mentioned the constipation issues? Like pouring actual glue into my intestines would be a good idea? Please.) 

After carefully considering all of my options, I got myself up out of bed, *toddled into the kitchen, opened all six bottles that I am currently taking my morning pills out of, piled the pills on the counter and systematically downed them with my bottle of water.

Then I took my breakfast over to the recliner (I don't have children, so I can eat anything I want, anywhere I want) and sat back to enjoy my... bowl of Shredded Wheat.

That's right. I had cereal for breakfast. And it didn't dawn on me until I was sipping the milk out of the bowl that I had just done what I had been told I couldn't do.

Milk IS Dairy, Evans.

And I'd totally taken my antibiotic right before I ate.

The kicker is, I knew I couldn't have dairy. And spent a good 30 minutes in my bed, planning my breakfast, to make sure I was following the rules, before I got out of bed and "made" myself breakfast.

I'm blaming this one on chemo brain.

*Oh, and in case you're wondering why I'm toddling about these days it's a combination of being tired and dizzy aaaaaaand (drumroll, please) bone pain. The bottoms of my feet were hit yesterday with a really insane amount of pain. As in, the heels of my feet feel like I'm walking on glass, every time I put a foot down. So, needless to say, I'm justifying staying in bed a lot more often these days. Which is just as well, since if I went back to taking a walk around the pool every day, this new med might make my lily white head go fuchsia. Fast.

It takes a village

Do you see that?

There's a TV in my bedroom. AND IT WORKS!

It's been quite the journey, kids.

Quite. The. Journey.

I won't go into all the harrowing details (you'll just have to trust me when I say this has been an experience, full of all kinds of pitfalls and miraculously lucky breaks). At the end of the day (this very long and not-super-fun day, specifically), I'd just like to do a shout out to the village that brought Downton Abbey to my bedroom.

Thanks,

Jo
Rhonda
Jeff, the Dobson WalMart store manager
Jake, the Chaparell WalMart store manager
Jo (again)
Joshua
Genevra Lynn
Andrew
Christian
Jo (one last time, because she came with her husband)
Dean
Uncle Robert

You all are my favorites!

Thanks for making a reunion with Lady Mary (and her many beaus) possible.

I wouldn't have been able to watch TV from my hospital-bed-like-bed without you! (And, boy, am I glad that I can!)

When it rains, it pours

So, yesterday afternoon, MD Anderson called. Like... at 4:45. (Turns out, they'd been trying to reach me all day, but my phone was off because my aunt and uncle were here and I was hiding from reality.)

It seems that the only time Dr. G had to put my port in (prior to 2/2) was... uh... tomorrow.

That's right. TOMORROW.

Tomorrow, I'm porting up.

(Gag me with a spoon.)

For real, I am horrified at the thought of having a hole in my chest that goes right to my bloodstream. It is completely disgusting, and I start to cry and gag simultaneously every time I think about it. But that's alright. ... Because the alternative to a port is a picc line that would leave tubes sticking out of my veins. (If there's anything grosser than a port it's a picc line. ... And that's saying something!)

I kept it together through the entire call with Michelle (my favorite MD Anderson nurse), and then fell apart for about three minutes... then I gathered all my gumption back up, picked up a pen, and wrote "port - 2:00" on the calendar that's stuck to my pantry door.

Anyway... that was yesterday.

Then, today... I went to the dentist.

Remember how I really wanted to make sure there wasn't anything that needed to be dealt with before I started chemo?

Uh, yeah. Good thing I went to the dentists, kids!

I have a root canal that's gone wrong. As in, there's an abscess between #3 and #4 and my jawbone has been rotting away. (Gosh, I love it when the medical professionals in my life say things to me that make me want to throw up.)

Awesome possum.

So, next Monday, I'm having a tooth pulled. (Is it still a tooth when there was a root canal and it's mostly just a crown? I'm not sure...) That will give me seven days to get a head start on healing... before they start pouring poison into that hole in my chest that's gonna kill my immune system and wreck my ability to heal.

I also collected a handful of fun flyers when I was at the dentist about what to expect to happen to my mouth when I'm on chemo. (I'm soooo looking forward to that, btw.) I won't go into all the gory details (I'll just say that you can trust me when I say it is gory), but I will tell you that I made a stop at WalMart this afternoon to pick up two prescriptions (antibiotics to kill the abscess, pain meds for the same), some all natural mouthwash that's supposed to help my mouth stay hydrated when I'm doing the chemo... oh, and a baby toothbrush (literally, a BABY toothbrush... as in, it's recommended for babies 5-18 months) because, per the hygienist, I won't want to touch my gums with anything firmer than a sponge or a super soft baby toothbrush. For the next six months.

(I'd have bought a sponge toothbrush, too, but WalMart wasn't that fancy.)

As much as I so do not want to have a tooth pulled next week, I'm choosing to be grateful that I'm aware this is something that needed to be done before I started chemo. As much as I hate that the dang tooth extraction is going to limit my bacon and soda consumption next week, I'm really glad that it's something I can get done before I start treatments. Having that week to start the healing process will go a long way towards that hole in my mouth getting better before I start puking. (I figure that vomit cannot be good when you have an open wound in your mouth.)

I feel like my spirit and my body are at war. Again. ... Still. (Whatever.)

There are so many things that my mind wants to do in the next two weeks, but what I'm learning (again... still... whatever) is that my body has other plans. Bloody and disgusting ones, actually.

I was talking to Jo today (I had called to ask her if she can be my designated driver next week for the tooth extraction) and I told her, half jokingly, that I'm starting to wonder if my body isn't working overtime, trying to break my stubborn spirit. She laughed, then told me I needed to just give in already, so the cancer will go away. ... The thing is, I'm pretty sure it's my stubborn spirit that's kept me alive thus far.

And, once I pointed that out, she agreed that was probably true and we decided it was probably best that we not call a truce with my disturbed and broken, sick and twisted, prematurely old body.

So, it is war.

Tomorrow, I get a hole cut in my chest. ... It's completely vile and totally disgusting to me. (But, really, it'll be better than blowing veins with IV's when I'm in the hospital for my treatments. So, there is that.)

And next week, I'll have a tooth pulled. (I can only hope this will be less traumatic than when I lost my wisdom teeth and it took 6+ weeks for my jaw to heal, so I could open my mouth wide enough for a hamburger. I have big plans for eating in the next 14 days and can't bear the thought of being on a mashed-potatoes-and-gravy-and/or-soup meal plan for that entire last week leading up to chemo.)

Hooray for pain pills and an iron will, right?!

In case you've ever wondered exactly how much I love the X-Men...

Here are some fun little stories about how jacked-up-crazy-town I get when I'm on pain meds.

Scene: Judy is bringing me in pain meds at 2:15 AM. I am asleep in my bed. Judy wakes me to take my pills, and I come to, saying...

"I was just dreaming about the X-Men. Like, I was one of them. My power? ... Not regeneration."

Ya like that, huh?

Well... here's another one from the day I came home from the hospital:

"Lindsay's trying to give me weight training lessons in my head. ... It's not working."

More, you say? You want more?! Okay, fine.

Talking about taking pain meds in the hospital, trying to decide whether to have drugs administered via IV or with pills:

"The IV... The ID... The IV... This is fun for you isn't it? Where's the candid camera?"

Okay, okay, okay... One more.

To Judy in the hospital, as I was waking up (from a drug-induced stupor/sleep... obviously):

"We're cellmates. Living in a paper manufacturing company. And the beeper means that an order is ready."

Isn't it great that Judy keeps a notebook of all my surgeries/dreams/hallucinations, so I can share these special moments with you?

You're welcome.

The Weekend

In case you were wondering if I've been sitting at home, sulking in my recent-return-to-Cancer-land, the answer is NO!

No, I have not been.

Truth is, moments after Dr. H left the exam room to go in search of Dr. G, I was texting my friend, Christian, asking if we could move our SunSplash day from June 21st to June 7th. (Christian and I heart the lazy river at SunSplash. We could ride the lazy river ALL DAY LONG. ... We have, in fact.) Lucky for me, Christian was free on Saturday.

WIN!

Which meant that we got to A) start the day with a heck of a lotta food at our favorite breakfast joint - Cracker Barrel (sourdough french toast AND bacon? yes, I think I will!) and B) spend the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon at the SunSplash.

I'm telling you, I love that place. (Which is weird, because I don't generally love large (or large-ish) bodies of water, and I sort of HATE being in a crowd.) But there's something so... other-wordly... about just floating along, feet in the water, talking with one of my best friends. It's so relaxing. It's fabulous.

And yesterday, we discovered the shallow end of the wave pool. LOVE. (Until the waves start, anyway. Once the waves start, you get the heck out of the two foot deep section, because your life may or may not be in danger. ... I'm serious, folks.)

Saturday was a fabulous, relaxing, happy day - full of my favorite things, and spent with one of my favorite people.

Today was a little less stellar, mostly because I tried to make rolls for Sunday dinner. (FAIL! ... I somehow burnt the rolls, my right index finger AND my left arm. ... Don't even ask how I did that. I don't have an answer.)

But, even for a roll-burning Sunday, today was still a good day. I finished cleaning out my closet and mended a top I've been putting off doing anything about for months now. I made some of the best mashed potatoes Of. My. Life. and had a fabulous dinner with the Woods, complete with the little girls crawling all over me. (I can't bear to tell them they can't both sit on my lap at the same time, because I know that time is short, and I won't be able to hold them for much longer.)

All in all, it was a fabulous weekend. Very minimal crying. All kinds of crazy back pain (possibly related to when the wave pool tried to drown me - but maybe it has something to do with this morning, when I was bent over to get the rolls out of the oven and came up at a weird angle... I'm not sure). Henry's been pretty decent today, and I haven't taken an Ativan since Thursday afternoon. I am blessed.

What I learned in school

This month marks 22 years since I graduated from high school. ... The mind reels, doesn't it? Where does the time go?

Anyhoo... I was thinking the other day about all the stuff I learned in school. There was some pretty great stuff taught in the Snowflake Unified School District back in the 80's and 90's. Please allow me to tell you all about it. (K-8, anyway.)

Kindergarten: I learned that leprechauns are real.

1st Grade: I learned not to tell my mom I had friends who were boys.

2nd Grade: I learned that if I used my fingernails to push the straight pins into the bulletin board, it didn't hurt nearly as badly as when I used the pad of my index finger.

3rd Grade: I learned that North is RIGHT IN FRONT of me.

4th Grade: I learned that the correct pronunciation is Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, with a hard CH.

5th Grade: I learned that when you blow on rabbit fur, the fur spreads out in a perfect circle and you can see the rabbit's actual skin.

6th Grade: I learned that I was tall.

7th Grade: I learned not to shave my arms.

8th Grade: I learned that menstrual cycles don't usually go on for 3 or more weeks.

Ahhh... You just can't beat a public school education!

Places I've peed my pants

We all know about that time I peed through my pants (and filled my shoes) at the movies when I was 33. But what you may not be aware of is that this is something that's been happening for YEARS.

True story.

For years.

Here are just a few examples of when/where I've ... erm... lost control:

* The brown chair (Mom & Dad's house - High School, because I was laughing so hard at something Rhonda Daniels said when we were talking on the phone)

* My sister's bed (Christmas Eve - 2007 ... It's a good thing she doesn't read my blog, because she has no idea I totally had an accident while we were sharing her bed. Ha!)

* In my parking lot. (2006 - Now. ... I can't even tell you how many times I've peed my pants trying to make it from my car to my door, and/or on my walk home from church. ... My church, btw, is literally across the street from the complex I live in. It's not a far walk, is what I'm saying.)

* Lowe's garden center (October 2013 ... I went into the bathroom and took my panties off and wadded them up and put them in a bag inside my purse and continued shopping. ... This would be one of the perks of peeing yourself when you're wearing a dress. No one knows.)

You'll note, I am sure, that I didn't mention any prepubescent pee stories. It's not because I had a steel bladder as a child, in case you were wondering. Oh, no. I just wanted to impress you all with how wide and varied my accidents have been WHILE I'VE BEEN A GROWN UP. (And I'm sorry to say this is not all of my stories. Not by a long shot.)

I hear it's worse for women after they've been pregnant/given birth. ... It's frightening, really, to think that my "urgent bladder" issues could have been made worse by carrying a child. Thank heaven the only things I've ever grown in my belly are tumors!

Egg yolk in the bathroom sink

I must apologize to any readers who are put off by the site of a less than pristine sink. (As a woman who is more than a little compulsive about keeping sink bowls clean, I'm surprised that I am posting this pic.)

This morning, as I was brushing my teeth (sans corrective eyewear), I noticed a yellow spot in the sink.

"That's weird", I thought, "I wonder how in the world I got egg yolk in the sink. I haven't eaten fried eggs in... I can't even remember how long."

I bent down and practically put my face into the sink, squinching my eyes up so I could get a better look.

Sure enough. Dried egg yolk.

I straightened back up and continued to brush my teeth, thinking back on the last few weeks, trying to pinpoint the last time I'd eaten fried eggs. Unable to remember when I'd last eaten eggs, much less reconstruct a scenario in which I would have been eating a runny-yolked egg over my BATHROOM sink, I decided that the spot had probably been there for weeks and I was just now noticing it. Which is weird, because I am NEUROTIC about having even one stray hair in the sink bowl. ... But whatever. I figured I must have been a little preoccupied lately, and this spot of egg somehow missed my notice.

And then, as I finished brushing my teeth, I reached forward with my left hand to turn the water off, and I saw it...

Oh yeah. Dial, much like the color of egg yolks, is a bright yellow.

Phew! It seems that I had NOT been sleep-eating fried eggs over the bathroom sink. Rather, I was simply suffering another attack of the early-morning crazies. (What kills me about this story is that I spent actual time trying to remember how/when I'd have been eating eggs in the bathroom. Like THAT was a perfectly reasonable thing to have done at any point in time. I wasn't one bit concerned that I'd been eating eggs in the bathroom, just bugged that I'd somehow left a spot on the porcelain.)

A morning person, I am not. .   

Oh, the many ways in which the media shapes my life...

Much in the way that watching Gravity last Saturday solidified that I never (EVER) want to go into space, last night's Blacklist has just made me realize that I never (EVER) want to get on a Subway again.

The End.

A little bit of this, and a little less of that...

Here are some fun morning facts about me:

I have to sleep with my alarm (which is my phone) in another room. If I sleep in the same room as my alarm, I'll turn it off in my sleep. So, it's in another room. That way, I have to get out of bed and walk into the living room to turn it off. (I won't lie, sometimes I'll still hit snooze and take it back to bed with me - and then turn it off instead of re-snoozing after ten minutes. ... I'm adorable.)

I have to plan what I'm going to wear the night before, or I will literally stand in the middle of my WALK-IN CLOSET and think "I have no clothes." For fifteen minutes. ... Or more.

Much like making wardrobe choices the night before, I have to pre-pack my lunch. If left to my own devices at 6:00 AM, I'm liable to walk out the door with a can of pineapple, a sleeve of saltine crackers and a Tootsie pop. ... That, my friends, is not a well-balanced meal.

And because three odd facts DO NOT a blog post make (and also because I'm too tired to take the time to actually write the whole stories... I tell you what, this two-week-old-cold-that-will-not-die is wearing me out), here are a couple little morning-time vignettes for your reading pleasure:

One fine morning when Jule, Weeze and I were living in the blue house, I started a fire in both the kitchen AND the bathroom. At the same time. Because I'm an overachiever. (Kitchen fire was a result of me trying to dry my sweater in the oven. - Turns out that acrylic yarn spontaneously combusts. - Bathroom fire was my curling iron melting through the plastic crates that we liked to pretend were furniture. In my defense, the bathroom fire never would have happened if the kitchen fire hadn't been taking up so much of my morning time.)

Once, when I was house-sitting for a co-worker, I woke up in the morning and saw a scratch on the headboard of the fancy bed I was sleeping in. I rolled out of bed, got down on all fours, and swiped my ring across the furniture to see if it really would scratch the wood. ... Sure thing. (I spent the rest of that weekend rubbing walnut oil into the headboard, trying to make my original scratch disappear.)

And it's not like that scratch-in-the-headboard sleepover was the most damage I ever did at DiAne's. ... Oh, no. There was the time the horses got out and I had to Hansel-and-Gretel the horses back into their pen by dropping an entire bale of hay all over the property. And the time HER DOG DIED on my watch. (It's astonishing that she ever had me back after that, really.)

Anyway... now that I've been laughing about my disasters whilst house-sitting, I'm coughing again. So, I'm going to stop typing and break the honey out. And maybe the NyQuil, too. ... At 7:30 on a Friday night. Wahoo! I'm such a party animal.

I need constant supervision

Lest you think I only do stupid things in the morning, please allow me to reassure you that I have also been known to be D-U-M-B in the middle of the night. Please see the photo below:

Here’s the back story:

Just a few short weeks ago, I woke up with a solidly WET bed, with this cute little floral-pattern glass lying next to my pillow. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what had happened. (I mean, don’t get me wrong. I was really glad when I saw the glass, because I’d been trying to figure out how I’d wet the bed in the general vicinity of my shoulders, when my pee-er was more in the middle of the mattress. But still. Confusing.)

As I thought about it, trying to figure out how that glass got into my bed, I remembered a dream I’d had the night before.

In my “dream”, I was thirsty. Super thirsty. So I got up in the middle of the night and walked into the kitchen – in the dark – and got myself a glass FULL of water. I took a couple sips, and then brought the FULL glass of water back to bed with me.

In said dream, I debated on whether or not I should put the FULL glass of water on either of my bedside tables and decided that, no, I’d be able to just hold on to it while I slept.

Guess what? It turns out that a person can’t HOLD ONTO A GLASS FULL OF WATER while she sleeps. Lying down. In a bed.

The amazing thing is that I didn’t wake up when I spilled the water – which, I’m telling you, SOAKED the upper part of my bed. Nor did I have a concrete memory of how it had happened. Just a "dream".

It seems that sleep walking isn’t just a thing of my childhood…

AKA: Further proof that I require adult supervision at all times. (And, yes, I live alone. Scary, I know.)

Look for lights, Evans. Look. For. Lights.

The year was 1994.

I had recently moved from Arizona to the beautiful (and oh, so snowy) Provo, Utah.

And when I say snowy, I mean SNOWY. ... I knew that it snowed in Utah before I moved there, but I was shocked and horrified by how EARLY it started and how MUCH it snowed. In OCTOBER.

(Don't worry about the all caps. My winter-weather-induced rant will be over in a minute.)

Anyhoo, it was October. In Utah. In 1994. ... In the wee hours of the morning, after a big, fat, snowstorm the night before.

I'd agreed to pick up my friend Kat in the AM and drop her off at work, because her car was in the shop and we worked within two blocks of each other. She lived a good 5 miles away from me, which really isn't all that far, but the drive was going to add another 20 minutes or so to my morning commute, so I was forced to wake up a little earlier than I usually would have. (And we all know that I wake up stupid in the best of circumstances - after a full 8 hours. You can imagine where this is going.)

As I'd recently made a move from the land of Not-So-Much-Snow, I did not (sadly) have an actual snow scraper to my name. Nor, amazingly enough, did I own a pair of gloves.

At approximately 6:00 AM, I walked out of my apartment and into the darkness that is a Utah winter morning and, I am sure, said some choice words when I saw that it had snowed a good six inches overnight. (I'm getting all tense and irritated, even know, just remembering those frigid winters. Ugh. ... I'll take 117 degree summers, any day!) I made my way to my car and commenced wiping the snow off the car with my arms, then used my driver's license as a snow scraper.

You heard me. I used MY DRIVER'S LICENSE as a snow scraper. Without gloves.

After I'd cleared the snow, I fumbled through my purse with my frozen/numb fingers and pulled out my keys so I could unlock the car and get in and turn the freaking heater on.

Oh, except that the key wouldn't go into the lock. Weird. So, I tried again. And again. And again. ... Until I realized that the 4-door gray sedan I was trying to get into had a gray interior. ... And my 4-door gray sedan had black interior. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the car I was trying to get into was a Honda. ... And my car was a Mazda.

Awesome.

Rolling my eyes, and shaking my arms at the sky, I shuffled away from the gray Honda and trolled the apartment complex parking lot, looking for my own snow-covered gray Mazda. (I'm sorry to say that it's been almost 20 years, and I am still unable to remember where I park. Like, ever. ... I wander in parking lots a lot. Reason #324 why I was meant to have a driver.)

Upon finding my own car, I wiped the snow off the windows/hood/roof/trunk with my arm. Again. And commenced to scraping the ice off the window with my driver's license. Again.

A few (long and semi-frozen) minutes later, I was in my car and headed to Orem to pick up Kat.

Oh, except that the needle on my gas gauge was pointing straight at E.

Did I know that I was out of gas the night before? Yes. Yes, I did. But, because I like to buy myself gas station breakfasts, I'd put off buying gas until the next morning. Had I forgotten that I needed to buy gas, when I'd gotten up that morning and then delayed my actual departure time because I had to clean, not one, but two, cars after a heavy snow fall? Yes. Yes, I had.

Awesome.

Being the wonder problem solver that I am, I did not panic. Instead, I mapped out a route up 9th East and over to University Parkway that I knew would take me right past a gas station, where I could fill up and then head up the hill to get my friend.

I chugged up 9th East and pulled in to the gas station on the corner across from Kent's Market. (For those of you who didn't know Provo in the mid-90's, Kent's is now a BYU Creamery and the gas station is now, I think, a jewelry store. Or maybe a Subway. Or both. ... Which I know sounds ridiculous, but I'm telling you, Mormon college kids heart sandwiches and getting engaged - and they'd love to be able to stop by the creamery on the way home for a double scoop, I am sure.)

As I pulled into the gas station, I pulled up alongside the pump, and then got out to start my gas pumping before I headed in to get breakfast.

Except the gas wasn't flowing out of the pump.

Huh.

That's weird.

I put the pump back into the tank, took the pump out of the tank and flipped the lever that would signal the tank to let the gas come, and it didn't do anything. So, I tried again. And again. And again.

And still, the pump was dry.

At this point, I was starting to get frustrated. I mean, I'd already wasted a good three minutes cleaning off a stranger's car. And now, I couldn't get the darn gas pump to work so I could fill up and go get Kat so she'd be to work by 7:00.

Argh.

So, I did the only thing I could think of.

I got back in my car and pulled forward to the next pump, then got back out of my car and tried that tank.

Still nothing. No fumes, even.

And that's when the first car started honking. (Have I mentioned that this is a fairly busy intersection in a college town, so there's almost always a line of cars... even at 6:30 in the AM?) Once one car honked, it became a free-for-all. There was a line of cars in front of the gas station, waiting for their red light to turn green and there were drivers honking at me, gesturing at me, pointing to something behind me. And laughing.

And that's when I turned around.

The gas station? Yeah... The lights weren't on. Because they weren't open yet. Which is why the gas wouldn't pump. 

True story. (Can I tell you how much I love the advent of debit/credit cards and the fact that, now, almost all gas pumps are manned with credit card machines that will allow you to swipe, pay for, and pump gas 24 hours a day? No. No, I cannot. Because there are not words for that kind of love.)

Epilogue: I did not die of embarrassment. In fact, at that point, I'm pretty sure I threw my head back and laughed out loud at my silly self, gave my honking friends a double thumbs up, and then got in the car and prayed my way to another gas station that WAS open, so I could gas up and get myself to Orem. I was a few minutes late to pick up Kat, but I still got her - and myself - to work. Neither of us got fired for being a smidge tardy. And I never ever tried to pump gas at a gas station that was closed again. Amen.

Ooey gooey and DELICIOUS

Q: Who thinks it's a good idea to make cinnamon rolls over the weekend?

A: This girl.

Q: Who then thinks that what she needs in her life is a warm (leftover) cinnamon roll for breakfast on a workday?

A: Again, this girl.

Q: Who prefers her cinnamon rolls with extra (by which I mean, EXTRA) icing?

A: You can figure it out.

Q: Who's usually running too late to sit down and eat breakfast in her own kitchen, so she takes it with her and eats it in the car on the way to work?

A: Yup... Again, me.

So, you can probably see how it happened that I wound up with cream cheese icing smeared down and across my dress today. (Stupid seatbelt. Also, I'm a bit of a slob, even when I'm not trying to balance and/or eat pastries from behind the wheel.)

And thus we see the perils of taking warm, ooey gooey cinnamon rolls (with too much icing) on the road. Doesn't mean it wasn't worth it. And it doesn't mean I won't do it again!

Like, tomorrow, maybe...

Too much of a good thing

Do you know what this is?

Yup. Cherries. 20 POUNDS of cherries.

Well, at this point, it's more like 10 lbs of cherries. (Because I've dealt with half the box.) But that's still A LOT of fruit for one person!

This is how this happened: My AWESOME friend Emily orders fruit by the box from the great state of Utah. (And Utah is a great little produce producer. Best cherries and peaches EVER!) The cherries were $30 for a 20 lb box. You heard me, $1.50 a pound. (That's awesome, right?!) So, I ordered a 20 lb box and planned on splitting it with Jo when it came in. Too bad Jo took her own self (and 80% of her cherry-eating young) to Utah last week, and the cherries didn't come in until yesterday.

The good news: Now I have 20 lbs of cherries all to myself.

The bad news: Now I have 20 lbs of cherries all to myself.

I've already frozen two cookie sheets full of them, and given a gallon ziploc-ful away... I have another ziploc in my fridge, you've seen the box on my counter, and this is what's in my sink:

Good thing I like them....

Because I have absolutely NO shame...

I'm going to tell you another story about how mornings are not my favorite time of the whole day.

It's a pretty well-known fact that I don't function well in the AM. I mean, it's so bad that I have to plan what I'm going to wear the night before, otherwise I stand in my closet for 20 minutes staring at rows of clothes, thinking that I have nothing to wear, and I end up being late to work. I'm adorable.

For most of the day, I can think on my feet. Believe it or not, I'm actually pretty rational. ... Most of the time. (I know that I don't come across as a rational being when all you know of me is this goofy little blog, but I promise that I do actually have a brain in my head.) But in the morning, all bets are off.

The following is a true story from my actual life:

I was getting ready for work and thought to myself that I wanted to wear my brown wooden earrings. So, I went to my handy-dandy jewelry bowl to get them. (I know. I'm sooooo organized.)
Problem:

There was only one wooden earring in the bowl.

Weird.

So I proceeded to look through the other two bowls. ... I even fished through the Christmas jewelry bowl, and nothing.

And that's when it hit me:

"Oh my gosh. I only have one earring. ... A serial killer broke into my apartment and took the mate as a trophy!"

True story.

This was my actual thought, followed closely by:

"Oh, wait. A killer would only need a trophy if he'd killed me, and I'm still alive."

Not, "A serial killer? Really? That's the most ludicrous thing you've ever thought, Evans!"

Oh, no. My thoughts were very much along the lines of, "Calm down. You're not dead."

(In retrospect, it was very reminiscent of the time that I had to tell myself "Evans. Calm down. The Joker doesn't know Batman is your boyfriend. He won't hurt you." in order to fall back asleep in the middle after the night after having Dark Knight flashbacks.)

Good heavens. Sometimes I scare even myself.

Three pounds

I may have mentioned this, but... My pants don't fit.

At all.

I mean... I can no longer fasten them. (This is a new development, as of this week.) It's okay. I'm not going naked, I promise. I have, like, 30 dresses in my closet and I truly prefer dresses to pants in the summertime, anyway.

So it's all good that my pants don't fit.

My concern is that they weighed me when I went in for my scan on Tuesday, and I only weigh 3 lbs more than I did at my last scan. (In my head, I was figuring it'd be more like 15-20 lbs difference, because I know how much weight I generally have to gain/lose to move a size.)

I know that there are several explanations for why my body has changed so much, and my actual weight hasn't ... uh ... changed so much.

Weight shifts. Bodies change. Stuff happens. ... To name just a few. (Super technical with that "stuff happens", I know. Maybe I should be a doctor.)

But what I know about my body changing and my weight not fluctuating with the changes makes me a little nervous.

To comfort myself, I will choose to focus on my double chin. Surely, since I have jowls again, these extra 3 pounds are nothing more than S'more Dip and Hershey's Kisses gone awry, having settled directly into the line of my zipper - and nothing more.

Surely... That's the explanation. (Darn S'more dip!)

One more day. (Well, one and a half, if we're gonna get technical. But still, one more day and I'll know.)

Breathe, Evans.

Breathe, and pinch your chubby little cheeks, and you'll be okay. (How do you like that mantra? I came up with it myself. I know, I'm such an inspiration.)

If ever there was a sign...

I'm pretty sure that I've been watching too much television this week. (Month/Year/For my entire life....)

This is what just happened in my real life. But first... a little back story.

So, last night, I fell asleep on my couch during an episode of Numb3rs. (Sad but true. It happens all the time. I'm so old!) I woke up at about 3:00, turned the TV off and went back and rolled myself into bed.

I woke up this morning at 7:00, and my first thought was, "I wonder if they caught those stinkin' jewel thieves?".

(Also, sad but true. Someone may identify a bit much with whatever she was watching when she fell asleep. ... Let me tell you right now, that when I was binge-watching Smash, I would wake up with not only music running through my brain, but I also had erratic, emotional - upon waking - thoughts regarding both Michael Swift and our pal Derek. I had a serious love/hate relationship with both of them.)

I came out to the living room, intent to finish the episode I half-slept through last night. (In my defense, I did make myself act like a grownup and empty the dishwasher before I was allowed to crash on the couch and watch TV.)

The dishes and my breakfast were both done (yes, I made food - impressive, no?) at about the same point in the episode that I'd crashed last night, so I sat down to enjoy the rest of the show.

Now, so you can picture in your minds exactly HOW ridiculous this was... please allow me to paint a bit of a back story to the episode.

(This is season 5, episode 1, for any of you who want to play along.)

Episode opens with a mountain climber being shot. (We have no idea why, or who shot him.) Dead mountain climber has, like, a 56 carat diamond on his body when he is found. FBI investigates the mysterious death. Finds out there's also a dead diamond dealer. (Not the dude who shot the climber, so don't worry about that.) FBI questions other climbers who knew said dead dude, to see if they knew where dead dude could have found the diamond. One team of climbers makes it their mission to backtrack their dead friend's route, to see if they can find the area the diamond could have come from. Meanwhile, the FBI realizes that a plane went down in the area. (FBI + Charlie, et al, reason that the plane was probably carrying the diamonds, that the climbers came upon the wreckage and pulled the bag full of diamonds out and was walking them back to civilization, when the diamond thieves realized the plane had crashed, someone had taken their raw diamond stash, and that the thieves had then found/killed the climbers.)

I know, I know... if I stopped writing right now, you'd probably be tortured, wondering what happens next. (Welcome to my world. This is where I fell asleep last night!)

Enter what happened this morning:

Whilst the geniuses (by which I mean: Charlie, et al) were back in Pasadena, mapping out the grid to determine exactly where the plane had gone down, Don was hiking through the mountains and came across three big, bad dudes (with guns - big ones) who were holding two climbers hostage. (The team of climbers who had made it their mission to back track their dead friend's route.) The bad dudes thought the new climbers were in cahoots with the dead climbers, and were threatening to kill one of them - to make the survivor spill it. ... Well, of course the climbers didn't know anything about the diamonds. LUCKY FOR THEM, Don was in the bushes with his pistol. He was able to lure out the two with semi-automatic weapons with a tape recorder, and then he knocked out the dumb, big guy and made off with the two hikers. Too bad the dude hiker/climber twisted his ankle and couldn't keep up with Don and the chick, so dude decided to sacrifice himself so he wouldn't slow and Don and the girlie down, saying "They think I know where the diamonds are; they won't kill me."

At the commercial break, it showed the bad dudes beating/torturing the climber dude. I was, understandably, shaken. (I hate blood. I hate it a lot.)

In an effort to calm myself the heck down, I said (yeah, I said this - to myself), "Evans, chill. You don't even know this guy!"

Hello.

That was an excellent reality check. ... I don't actually KNOW any of these people. They aren't even REAL people!

Like I said... if ever there was a sign that maybe I watch too much television, this would be it.

I'm leaving the house today, making sure that I interact with real people. ... Right after I finish this episode of Numb3rs, that is.