Awkward and Awesome Thursday

Awkward:

• A man calling and asking me for the number to an orthotics company. I told him I didn't have the number and he didn't respond. Dead Silence. Sigh. "Do you want me to google it for you?" I ask.  Of course he did. Unfortunately this isn't the first time people have called me just to google something for them.
• Getting pinched on the butt at a Nursing Home.... by one of the crankiest old ladies I've ever met. Not surprised it finally happened, surprised it was her that got me first though. Yikes.
• The Dr. encountered another patient in Nevada yesterday who had poop on their socks. Took of their shoes and so far so good. Then he reached down for the heel of the sock to pull it off and BAM! Poop. I just don't understand.
• Since last July I've been having back/hip/sciatic nerve issues. After multiple Dr.'s, a chiropractor, doing what I've done before in physical therapy and countless internet searches I think Chad and I have stumbled on to my real problem and how to fix it. Thanks Yo Elliot. You Tube > Doctors. I kid. Kinda....

Awesome:

• We found Paczki's at Kroger on Tuesday. I immediately abandoned my "cleanse" I was doing this week and ate one as pre dinner. We may have bought 2 boxes of them. 4 each sounds reasonable right?
• Thanks to the stretches I found I was standing upright at the end of the day yesterday. Seriously a freakin' miracle.
• Our goal this week: Eat all the gluten in the house. Next week will be remarkably different lol. But for now all the gluten is ours!
• New Bras. In the correct size. Chad has always and will always know better than I do about what size I am. In everything.
• The past 2 days have been in the high 70's. Sorry Michiganders, that one was for you :) If it makes you feel better it rained today and was only 61.

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

Debi and her new hubby Barry got here Sunday night! We are super excited to spend a couple weeks with them, showing off our favorite outdoor spots and eating an ridiculous amount of dessert. They've only been here 3 full days and we've already made brownie sundaes, giant chocolate chip cookies, bought krispy kremes, and restocked the snickers stash. Side Note: We may have a candy drawer that has turned into a snicker's/Chocolate Chip drawer. Livin' large at the Lewis House. I've got plans to test out a new sugar cookie recipe and am pretty sure I can trick everyone into going to my favorite Chinese Buffet on the way back from Zion's. Clearly my most important plans involve eating massive amounts food.

Awkward:

• An old man doing a ring check on me at the Nursing Home. Why yes sir, I am married. Good thing I remembered to put it on after rock climbing, who knows how that could have played out.
• Getting back from a nursing home and finding a weird brown stain the size of my fist on my thigh. Hmmmm.... Poop or Chocolate?
• Speaking of poop, finding poop on our bed Tuesday night after staying up until 2am with Debi and Barry. Poop on the bed is never good, at 2am, it's down right horrific.
• Trying to tell older patients my name. Danielle is absolutely exotic to most people over a certain age. And after yelling it 10 times in a row, directly into someone's ear, it starts to sound strange to me too. I'm thinking I should just tell anyone over 80 or hard of hearing that my name is Kate.
• Shoving all of our clean clothes (we hadn't done laundry for weeks) into a random closet when Debi and Barry got here. Folding? Ain't nobody got time for that!
• Mountain Biking in broad daylight and tipping over into a bush, that's right, tipped over. Granted I was wearing a giant backpack so I do have a bit of an excuse.

Awesome:

• Trying to replicate Panera's Chocolate Chip Cookies. I haven't found the right recipe yet but we are sure enjoying the process!
• Getting to the top of my harder climb without having to rest on the rope once! A clean climb is the best feeling!
• Mountain Biking in the dark and not totally wiping out.
• Attempting crazy yoga moves and realizing I have the strength to attempt them. Attempt being the key word. I may not be at all flexible, not at all, but I am getting stronger! 
• Garlic Bread.
• Our back Patio! Barry cleaned it up and rigged up our tarp for our bikes!

Happy Early Valentines Day! Hopefully it's full of love from friends and family, and lots (and lots) of chocolate!

"Have you ever shot a horse?"

You should all know that when I disappear from the blog it's usually because the nursing homes have taken over my life/brain.

Once a month the nursing homes high jack our schedule at work and it's all I can do to keep up with it. I don't know how you do it Ash.

In addition to chillin' with old people feet, that smell mostly like urine, we've also been chillin' with 2 sixteen year olds. They love Chad because he lets them play grand theft auto and takes them rock climbing. We love that we will exploit them in the future and use them as free dog sitters. Also, they introduced us to a new donut shop. If you bring me donuts we will be instant friends for life, done.

I should confess that the old man at the nursing home didn't actually ask the Dr. if he had shot a horse, although that's what my crazy brain heard. He really asked if he had shoe'd a horse. But my way is funnier. 

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

 

We take our Zoolander fashion shows very seriously around here. Although I think the most awkward thing about these photos is my beautiful pool hair. Warning: I may be looking through all my old photos to find new "awkward" photos, you may be up here soon ;) These are coming at ya from over 3 years ago.

 

 

Awkward:

• Planning on being 20 minutes early to work only to find your car completely frosted over. No worries, scrape it off! Nope. We were prematurely happy about the warm weather and who the heck knows where our window scrapers are. I patiently sat in the car for close to 15 minutes waiting for our car to warm up. Until it warmed up I may have been blowing freezing cold air full blast, making the problem much worse. At any rate I made it to work only 1 minute late. Is it the weekend yet?
• I wore the sweatshirt I usually wear at work while making brownies. The next day at work as I am handing a new patient some papers to fill out I notice that it looks like I have poo all over the cuff near my right hand. Nope, just brownie batter. Poo or chocolate? Luckily I don't think this particular patient noticed, and if they did I don't think they would have cared. Classy people.
• It was nursing home week at work, so it was an explosion of older awkwardness, topped off by a woman who told the Dr. to look away, as she stood up her pants and adult diaper were around her knees. Danielle to the rescue! She tried to take them all the way off but I convinced her to let me pull them back up. BTW, she had used the diaper. Pants seem to be a real issue at nursing homes.... but I guess I've mentioned multiple times that I hate wearing pants, so....
• Someones socks at the nursing home were covered in old pee. They were yellow, and no they were not just stained, you know pee when you smell it.
• Enough poo and pee talk? I am happy to report that I haven't seen Miss Brittany in a whole week! While this in and of itself is AWESOME, Brittany will only ever be mentioned as being super awkward.

 

Awesome:

• I told a guy at the nursing home "bye" and that we would see him in a couple months. He told me to "stay sweet".
• Adjustments were finally made to Chad's financial aid!
• Grades are in! Chad was unnecessarily worried.
• My parents are amazing and wonderful.
• Grandma's are the best.
• Aunt's are pretty awesome too.
• Previous bosses rock as well.
• Anniversary celebrations.
• Parents and Tay will be here Sunday!
• Ash and Pat will be here Christmas day!

 

I hope you had an awesome week!

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

Awesome: How seriously we took racing through this giant inflatable course at trampoline land. Awkward: Accidentally putting Chad's watermark on this picture like it's something to be proud of.

 
Awkward:

• Going into a man's room at the nursing home and finding a wall full of deer antlers. On the other wall? A dozen calendars full of... boobs. Lots and lots of boobs. Bikini boobs, costume boobs and hunting boobs. It was an impressive collection.
• Trying to confirm a patient's appointment only to get a "message phone". Huh? The woman on the other end just kept saying, over and over, "this is a message phone". Yeah, I don't know what the heck that's suppose to mean. And I don't think anyone else does either.
• Having a random stranger wander into the nursing home, find the activities room we were working in and asking to be seen. Thinking he was a resident of the nursing home we took care of his feet. When we asked the facility for his insurance information they said they had no record of him being there, possibly he was there visiting someone. Creeper...
• Presidential Debates. I don't care who you support, it's awkward.

Awesome:

• Puff Pastry
• Chad taking care of me when my wisdom tooth was yanked out. He was awesome. He made me stay on the couch, waited on me hand and foot, and "made" me take naps. Love him. 
• TCBY yogurt is sold in grocery stores. Why did I only just find out about this?
• Sleeping with the windows open and having it be just cold enough to have to snuggle all night to keep warm. It doesn't help with the getting out of bed in the morning though. 
• Speaking of colder weather, it's getting cold enough outside to start killing off the cockroaches. Leaving our house in the morning we'll often find a few roaches dead, unable to make it through the night. Woot!
• Ash and Pat are coming to visit tonight! Super excited to hang out with them!

 

Your turn!

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

Crazy sno cone lips.

Awkward:

• Trying to look up a website to get our logo printed on shoe horns and emery boards and going to a porn site, per the sales lady on the phone. Is there anything more awkward than porn in the work place? Unfortunately this isn't my first time...
• I went up to the church to play the piano last night and a little boy came in. This itself is nothing new. Then he sat down next to me, as I'm playing, and said "When I'm near a piano I just have to play!" He then started playing. Confused as to what the heck was happening I stopped and got up while he continued to "play" his own "music". I use these terms extremely loosely. One of his "compositions" consisted of three notes played over and over and over. I finally just gave up and left so this little boy could play out his feelings alone.
• Our pets have boundary issues. Chad and I will be snuggling on the couch and Sunny will jump up on me and try to snuggle with Chad's face. Rukia also has no problem squeezing herself between us and snuggling down. Penny's the only one who doesn't want to cuddle with our faces. She'd much rather snuggle with our butts while we sleep.
• A family member that was visiting a patient at the nursing home telling us stories of (1) how he had bugs that laid eggs under his toenails. Once they started hatching and crawling out, he just pulled off his toenails. (2) If he gets any sort of tooth pain he just pulls the tooth out himself. He's pulled out one whole side of top teeth and a few on the other. WHAT?! Crazy Alert! He told me to call him if I need a tooth pulled. Uh, yeah. no thanks. I'll gladly pay a trained professional.

Awesome:

• The Voice. Anyone else addicted to this show?
• After hiking Angel's Landing in the dead of night last week with Nikki and Matt we had a nutritious and delicious dinner consisting of the biggest and best onion rings and a "mini" shake the size of my head. Awesome.
• Fry Sauce.
• Chad rockin' out his second round of tests. He's a smarty pants ;)
• Making muffins on Sunday so we can have breakfast this week! No matter how much I hate eating breakfast, it really does help!
• Chad has a mid semester break for a few days next week!
• We are finally out of the 100 degree weather! It may be high 90's but at least we've made it down a little bit. The nights are now lovely, mid 50's, and we can sleep with our windows open.

What were the best parts of your week?

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

It's almost Friday!!!

Awkward:

• Chad messing with some camera equipment and getting a giant chunk of plastic in his eye. I ran over to help him and thought I would have to fish around to find it. Yeah, no. It was huge, and black and right there. I tried to get it out but finally just told him he'd have to do it. I swore he was going to poke his eye out going after it with a pair of tweezers but he got it!

• The awesome nursing home lady who has fake puppies she carries around in her basket on her walker. Best part, one of them has a cone around it's head. Those crazy puppies, always hurting themselves.
• Being on a first name basis with the people at the surronding gas stations. Only 2 really. But isn't that 2 too many? I won't even tell you why.
• Dropping my phone in the parking lot while grocery shopping last night. The pixels are all weird now so it looks like there is a fetus on my phone. I used to drop my iphone on a freaking daily basis on the way into my old job. Never bothered it. Not a scratch, not a dent, nothing. That phone was a champ. I drop this thing once and now I've got an alien baby looking back at me.
• The grumpy old couple at the Nursing Home we visit. They are the grouchiest, angriest couple ever but they crack me up. They never let the Dr. work on them and it's a riot to listen to them grumble and gossip about people. Last month they were sitting outside, enjoying the 90 degree heat of the morning, soaking up the sunshine, all in their giant winter coats. LOL. I was a sweaty mess and here they were sitting out in the sun in their down coats that came down to their knees. Love it.

Awesome:

• Desert Industries. It's our Salvation Army. And while really, it sucks, no colored tag sale of the day, no specials ever really, and everything seems to be overpriced, it's all we got! I have become a DI champ. I go into the dressing room with arms of (mostly) crap and usually manage to find a few cheap gems.
• Pawn Stores. While I love the DI Chad loves all the Pawn Shops around here. He's been able to get some killer deals as of late. Like, quick run out of the store before they realized what just happened, killer deals.

Chad's latest loot from the Pawn Shop

• Chad's pictures from his photo shoot last week. While he hasn't been able to edit many yet (too many tests) he's got some killer shots and I can't wait to see how they turn out once he edits them.
• Nikki and Matt come NEXT WEEK! AHHH! We are SOOOOOOO excited!
• Cookie Dough. I made cookie dough over the Labor Day weekend and ran out of regular flour, so I used some cake flour to make up the difference. Note to self: cake flour is not the same as regular flour. They were the flattest cookies ever made, and didn't really taste that good. Upside? I now have a cookie dough just chillin in the freezer for me to munch on. A spoonful of cookie dough is the perfect way to end a long day.

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

This week hasn't been the most exciting. We've mostly been trying to keep up with our new schedules. One car worked out just fine the past two semesters but it's getting a bit more complicated now that Chad is taking 16 credits. It's also hard for him to pick me up from work when I get bored waiting around and start to wander to nearby stores. Granted, I did text him, but I didn't know his phone had died. Woops. It made for a stressful Tuesday night. We think we've got our schedules figured out so hopefully next week will run a bit smoother.

As for this week it's mostly just been running around, lots of driving back and forth, schopping for school supplies, more shopping for last minute surprise school supplies and killing bugs. We are happy that Friday is almost here.

Awkward:

• An old lady showing up to her apointment 15 minutes early and deciding the best way to pass the time is to sit and stare at me. Seriously, a whole 15 min of some old lady stranger just staring right at my face. Every once in a while I would make awkward eye contact and smile. She would keep her same straight face and not budge. No smile, no "hi", nothing.
• We are becoming true Utards Utahns :) I couldn't help myself! I want Cafe Rio EVERY SINGLE DAY! I swear, instead of a grocery budget we now just have a Cafe Rio budget. I discovered their nachos last week and OMG, they are fantastic. They always look at me strange when I ask for hot enchilada sauce on them, but by the time we're done they always decide it was a great idea. Your welcome Cafe Rio.
• The Vulcan Dental Arts sign outside of a dentist office. Is this for real? Am I missing something here or is this Dentist way too hardcore of a Trekkie? No way I'm getting my wisdom teeth taken out here...
• Learning that if we decide to go back country camping in Bryce Canyon we need Bear Proof Containers. Stringing food up in trees doesn't work anymore because the bears are becoming used to people!?! What!? I wasn't preparred to deal with cockroaches so I'm sure as heck not equipt to deal with freaking Bears!
• Our very last patient at the nursing home weighed at least 600 pounds. He was sitting on his bed with his feet dangling over the side. He decided he was going to lay back as the Dr. worked on his feet. He layed back and his gown went back with him exposing everything. Giant balls all the way to his knees. TMI? Yeah, it was too much for me too. Be happy you didn't have to see it. I'm just glad he wasn't wearing any shoes that I had to take off. Phew...

Awesome:

• Raspberry Lemon Truffle Cupcakes. From Kneaders, duh. What baked good to they make that doesn't taste like fairies dancing across your tounge? Even better than the cupcake place here that won Cupcake Wars.
• The giant Costco size bag on M&M's sitting in the kitchen at work. I always have a pocket full of M&M's at work now :)
• Three Day Weekend coming up! Woot! Chad's school schedule has really thrown us off so we are excited to rest, do something fun and study/clean. Well, we are excited about the first two.

Awkward and Awesome {stormy} Thursday

View of tonight's storm

This week has gone by sooooo slooooow. I swore that yesterday was Thursday, which really seemed to confuse people when I was making apointments for "tomorrow, Friday, July 13th". Does anyone else feel like you should do silly halloween-ish type things whenever it's Friday the 13th? I don't quite know what these things would be but I feel like we should "celebrate" in some manner...

Chad's summer classes are coming to an end soon so he's been slammed trying to finish up everything. He's got to make up one or two yoga classes before the end of next week so that means that we will both get to go to his teacher's yoga studio this coming week! I LOVED going to an actual yoga class (I've only been once, sad day) but it was infinitley better than doing yoga to a stupid DVD. We've also found a few other yoga spots around town that let you try the first class for free! Definitley need to jump on that! Hopefully the week went by a little faster for everyone else!


Awkward:

• Ok, I know you are all sick of hearing about church awkwardness but here we go again :)  I have literally had 4 people over to my house from church. 2 ladies who welcomed me to the ward after I had been here for months, my visiting teacher, and the family (ok, 7 people counting the family of 3) of the girl who watched our dog when we were in Hawaii. The mom of this girl saw me on Sunday and asked me if I was visiting. Um, no... you've literally been in my house... twice. Next week I'm taking Carly and Chrystal's advice and dying my hair pink while wearing the most outrageous thing possible, then maybe people will remember me. Chad seems to be having more luck in this department. People know who he is, although people are still super rude for no reason. We are really missing our Clarkston Ward.
• Helping a little girl in the bathroom on Sunday only to watch her pee everywhere. Her dress, underwear, and all over the floor. Yes, she was sitting on the toilet. Yes, I had to clean all of it up. No, I'm never going to be the one taking her to the bathroom again.
• While helping a little old lady take her shoes off at the nursing home the guy sitting right next to her was taking off his. I was initially excited that one of our patients could still manage to take off their shoes on their own. Then as he was taking off his sock he just pulled it off inside out... flinging dead skin cells e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e. Oh, and by everywhere, I mean all over me. Seriously, my neck my scrub top, all over my pants, arms, all of it. I got pretty good at avoiding the foot confetti at my last job but this came out of left field and very literally attacked my face.

Awesome:

• An old cranky lady in the nursing home caught my eye as she was waiting to be seen. As soon as she realized she had my attention she started pointing at other people waiting in the room, rolling her eyes and making faces. It was hysterical. She clearly was not impressed with these people. When she saw that she was making me laugh it only got worse. She's my new favorite.
• We got a "new to us" juicer at the DI last weekend. This one is the press kind, so it's better than our electric one for citrus. We have been on an orange juice kick at our house ever since, it's delicious! Last night we bought a pineapple and had pineapple orange juice. SO GOOD
• A/C in our car has been recharged! Again! 112 degree heat is not compatible with no A/C. We tried. We failed. We also have two new front tires since the tread was gone. The heat shield that was trying desperatley to fall off also got zip tied back on. Yup, our car's fancy like that. Now it doesn't sound like our car is trying to explode every time we start it or go over any kind of bump. Now we don't have to have random strangers and police officers point out that we are "dragging something".
• Church now starts at 9am! I was sad to see my extra day of sleeping end go away but excited to be able to have the whole afternoon to ourselves after a morning full of awkwardness!
• Frozen Dinners. I love my crockpot in the winter for soups and such but I needed something else for the summer. No one wants hot soup when it's over 110. It's just ridiculous. So I made twice baked potatoes and lasagna rolls on sunday and froze the little buggers! So much better than a pizza and easy peasy on the nights I don't want to cook, which is turning in to every night apparently. We've had them 3 times this week, and it's only Thursday. You do the math. 
• Thunderstorms. That's right, we finally got a thunderstorm tonight. It was crazy, windy, dusty, bright and loud. We drove around in our car so we could watch it as it moved through St. George :)