Tomorrow: Work in the morning, turn in timesheet, pick up travel insurance card, meeting Jessica for lunch, doing some Spain shopping in Frisco.
Thursday: Work
Friday: Parents coming to visit
Saturday: Lake Dallas 4th of July festival thing (and I have a harebrained scheme for that day, but I'm not going to talk about it until it's over...LOL)
Sunday: The day o' rest (and maybe more shopping!)
Monday:
Tuesday:
Wednesday: Leaving

Ahhh, I am getting kinda wound up about this trip, starting to feel nervous about having everything I need and (most importantly), remembering to bring it. What do I REALLY need though? Underwear, deodorant, hairbrush, makeup, and toothbrush. My glasses. Clothes for the conference, clothes for the rest of the time, a ball cap, a swim suit, and a beach towel. Speaking of the beach, I need to bring a razor. A book or two. A small notepad & a pen. My flash drive. My passport, my debit card, a credit card. Electronics: straightening iron, laptop, camera, cell phone, and chargers. If I have those essentials, I'll be fine. What is the big deal???? I think I'm worried that I won't have enough stuff for 10 days. That's ridiculous... I'll feel better if I get my bag out and start throwing stuff in it. Poor Rebekah - I foresee more than 1 phone call next week along the lines of, "WHAT am I forgetting???" But she won't mind, because we're rooming together and if I forget something, she'll be the first person I whine to. LOL

Non-essentials: an extra bag for souveniers. Protein bars - I have never regretted packing protein bars. A water bottle? Vitamins. Hair thingies. My own soap/shampoo/hair goo. A neck pillow for the plane. Electronics: my MP3 player, but that's an extra charger, ear phones, everything. Eh... See THIS is the stuff I stress over, not the essentials.

Whoa, I am forgetting to share big news here! Tom's last day of speech therapy is Thursday. :-) He will still go to physical therapy, but isn't that GREAT?? It's kinda like graduating. Go Tom!

Been craving chips and dips so much that I don't care if I blow up like a balloon. So I made this dip tonight and had it for dinner. It was delicious!

I also made my salsa, and it was one of the best batches I've made in a while. Mmmmm. It had just the right amount of cilantro, onion, and fresh jalepeno heat. That is the salsa trinity that has to be perfect, and the unpredictability of fresh jalepenos makes it difficult to get it right. But tonight....mmmmm...I can't wait to eat more! I'll have to make a salsa roast this week before we eat it all up. There is something kinda salty and rich about that roast that I can't eat a lot of, but Tom looooves it and we do have a roast in the freezer.

Yep, I have been craving food like crazy lately. I'm drooling right now thinking about tonights chip and dip extravaganza. And embarassed that I'm excited about that frozen mound of pot roast sitting in the freezer.

Spain is 12 days away, and no, I haven't made a checklist for it yet. But don't worry, making the checklist is on my checklist for this weekend. :-)

My sunburn from Saturday is peeling and I look like I have leprosy.

Tomorrow I'm cleaning the house like a madwoman. Tom is planning to mow.

Am I done needing 8 hours of sleep a night? Supposedly you need less and less as time goes on. Maybe I should quit trying to go to bed early out of habit. I haven't actually fallen asleep on time in a while.

Tom is all addicted to that Farm Town application on Facebook. Bwahahahaha. I can hear the cheesy music every time he goes in there to harvest his crops. I cannot get addicted to those applications! I just hit ignore anytime I get one that looks high maintenance. It's cute, though. He named his farm "TBI Terrafarming". LOL

My parents are coming on the 3rd to go to Grapevine for some wine tasting. I can't believe they are actually coming this way! I have been trying to get them to visit for a long time (not counting hospital/post-hospital visits). It will be fun!

Good night! Only one more minute that I can say that before it's Good Morning!

It's been FOREVER since I posted pictures. And these are just from this weekend. I still have spring break stuff. Oh well!

Saturday, we woke up and headed to the Denton Airshow. It was pretty awesome. I can't wait to go to the big one at Alliance, now. :-)

The Coast Guard showed off their helicopter.

Neat spiraly smoke from an aerobatic plane.

Cool old planes.

Tom's favorite one.

Tom watching - what are we going to do with that fuzzy head? I am not sure whether to keep growing it out or cut it shorter!

More old planes.

Another spiraly smoke thing.

The FA-18 - that thing was loud and SWEET!

I got the worst sunburn I've had since 6th grade at that airshow. It's on my shoulders. Ugh!! Oh well, better to get it over with here than in Spain.

At home, we played Xbox and I got a rare good picture of Puddin'.

Sunday, we went to my parents' house for father's day. We all pitched in and got him an RC plane. I hope he likes flying it!

My niece Miranda. I brought her home with us that day, and we're taking her back home this afternoon. Look how sweet she is! She's 10, I know that any day now she'll switch from kid to teenager, and I'm trying to get in all the "sweet" time I can.

We got up the next morning and drove to Oklahoma to visit Arbuckle Wilderness. Look at this sweet llama or alpaca or whatever!

The emus were HILARIOUS. They would come right up to the window, and it was scary thinking they could snap your finger off.

Ha! I love birds!

This deer/cow mix was more interested in chewing cud than coming up to the truck.

Look at the sweet innocent camels.

NOT! They were the pushiest animals out there! They were not content to sit by your window waiting for food. They would get IN the truck and take whatever they could get. So, we put up the windows.

The look on her face is priceless.

He kept following the truck even after we drove off!

These kids are hanging out the truck approaching the camels. We were shaking our heads at how dumb that was. Then they got closer to the camels and started screaming, got back in the truck and rolled up the windows. Haha!

Awwww, cute mini donkeys!

Not so cute begging for food, huh??

I thought this animal was really pretty.

Tom loved the buffalo. Made him hungry.

Aaaahhh, the emu returns!

ZEBRAS!

GIRAFFES!

One of those giraffes was drooling so much we rolled up the window. Ew.

Strange animals we saw at Arbuckle wilderness.

And that was that! It was stinkin' hot, and we made it home by 2:30pm. I thought it was a lot of fun. Today, we are going swimming before we take Miranda home. :-)

As suspected, my presentation was only attended by one other person, a nice young special ed teacher who came because she knows my co-presenter, who was listed but didn't come to the conference. So, I still got to do the presentation, but it was more casual. I think she got something from it. She wanted me to send the handout to her principal, too, which makes me happy. And it lasted right up to 45 minutes. I have another 45 minute (or is it an hour??) presentation in November, and it's nice to know I don't have any trouble rambling on for that long.

The rest of the conference is good. One thing I love about education is that even the professors are still teachers at heart, and they always seem extra interested in students. You can tell some of them make a point to seek out students, talk to and encourage them. I don't know if it's like that in other fields. I've had a great experience so far with people wanting to be helpful.

After it was over, I got to sit in rush hour traffic in Irving. Yay! The TomTom had me going some strange direction, and once I realized it was wrong, I had it "recalculate" the route, and it made me turnaround. I was right by the airport, and this turning around and driving 2 miles the other way added 30 minutes to my trip. I have a little traffic driving to and from school and work, but I DON'T miss sitting in bad traffic everyday. It's funny how my tolerance has diminished. I'm spoiled by my 7 mile commute.

When I got home, Tom and I met up with Twila and her daughter Becca to see The Hangover at the Movie Tavern. If you like tacky movies, this was hilarious! I seriously needed the laugh. It made me want to go to Vegas. It looks so fun. We would like to go see the UFC fights live in Vegas sometime, but it's SO expensive. Actually, I just checked and it's not as bad as it used to be. For these fights, albeit not in Vegas, cheap seats are $50. Hmmmm.... I wonder how good the view is. Maybe we'll have to buy some cheap seats one day and go for it. Check out that fight card, though! The Dean of Mean!!! Yay. I hope he wins. And Hammil vs. Vera, nice! And those aren't even the main events. Maybe we can go out to watch that one. I like watching them at people's houses, but sometimes it's fun to be at Buffalo Wild Wings feeding off the crowd.

Today...I need to:

• Clean up the house a bit
• Buy groceries
• Wrap my dad's present for tomorrow

I started typing this blog at 10am or so this morning, and while I wrote my list of stuff to do, I remembered that Tom and I wanted to go to the Denton Airshow today! So I checked the schedule, saw that we weren't too late, and we headed out. It was so cool! I got some sun, which I really wanted to do before Spain. Will post pics soon. Everything else I needed to do can wait. We are about to eat dinner and watch "Taken". :-)

I got bangs again. The overall length is a little shorter because my hair was in desperate need of a good trim. I kinda wish I'd gone shorter, but I can always cut more later. I'm always on the fence about bangs. I don't get my hair cut often enough to keep them out of my eyes. But I really like having them. So, I got em. I might go back before my trip and have her thin out the layers a little more. We'll see how it goes. I look like crap today and if I were wearing something cuter, I might like my hair better.

I also found some tennis shoes I liked today in Lewisville. I'll try working out in them later. They need some serious breaking in! I almost just wrote about my dad's gift, but I can't know for sure whether he'll read this before Sunday, so I better zip it.

I have an eye exam at 4:30 I'm not looking forward to. I'm getting contacts again. I'll be able to buy cheap sunglasses again! Yay! I just hate going because they charge $20 extra if I have an astigmatism, but she doesn't do anything different. ??? And why do prescriptions expire after a year? I've had these glasses for 2 years now, and yes, maybe my prescription will be a little different this time, but I wish it were up to ME when I get a new prescription. Do people REALLY pay to have their lenses replaced every year for a change of only .25??? Ridiculous. I just hope it goes quickly. The exam won't take long, and hopefully I can get my contacts and run!

This is turning into an expensive day, but it's all crap I can't put off anymore. I want my contacts before the Spain trip, and that is quickly approaching. What other crap do I need to buy before that trip? Maybe just some clothes. Tammy, if you read this (or if you don't), the conference that's Friday is not the same one that's in Spain. Friday's presentation is in Irving. I hope they feed me! Last year lunch was good. I half want to just show up for my presentation and leave, but that's kinda tacky for someone in my position - someone who didn't pay for her own registration and someone who still has a lot to learn from the conference. I had a nice time last year, but no one else I know is going this time. I guess I'll have to be sociable and "network". NOT my strong suit. LOL It's a small conference and I should go support the other presenters. (Sorry, I had to reconvince myself that going for the whole day is my only option.)

Tom is going to his friend's house Friday, and I can't figure out why I'm irritated about it. Normally I would be happy to get him out of the house so I could have all the wine for myself, wear a big ugly sleep shirt, and watch some girly movie. :-) Anyway I made plans to go the Movie Tavern so I won't sit around and pout about the fact that I don't know why I'm pouting. I don't know what my problem is! Well, I sort of know, but it's not rational, so my only option is to get over it.

You'll try to answer my poll by tomorrow.

Friday, McNair summer class started, and it was nice to see a lot of people, but there were a couple people missing that made things not feel McNairy. I guess the move from Highland Hall to Wooten doesn't help, either. The class isn't required if you took it last summer, which explains the missing people - I am taking it for the extra upper level hours, plus they change the schedule up. I'm sad because one of the new additions is a grant finding/writing class, but it's during my Spain trip. At least I'll be in town for the class over imposter syndrome.

Friday after class, I won a very important battle in my marriage. TWO battles, in fact. Tom wears these cheap skater shoes instead of real tennis shoes, and they are no good for working out. Oh, how I hated those Vans!! The latest pair was filthy and had holes in them. At the ER when they were getting him ready for CareFlite, they had to cut his clothes off. They said, "Well, the clothes are ruined, but do you want these shoes?" I thought, "This is my big chance!" I could've made the Vans disappear and blamed it on the hospital. Of course, I didn't have the heart.

These shoes have not been working for him in physical therapy, so we went to Academy Friday to pick out some new ones. He is the proud owner of a new pair of New Balance shoes, but that isn't all. I got him some low-cut socks, and HE IS ACTUALLY WEARING THEM. Yes, my husband has ditched his signature shorts/tube socks combo. YES! I win! I could throw away the tube socks just for insurance, but he'll probably want them for jeans. I can't stand wearing low cut socks with jeans. It's weird.

Saturday, we went to his sister Amanda's new house for dinner with his family, and went to my sister's house to watch the UFC fights that night. I was glad she invited us for the fights because we weren't planning to go out and watch them. I'm going to miss UFC 100 July 11th because of the Spain trip. Of all fight nights to miss! It will have three main events. Turns out, Tom won't be able to watch them either, so maybe we can order them on PPV when I get home. Hopefully I won't see the results on the internet in the meantime.

I'm a little less stressed about Friday's conference presentation after talking about it at work today. They are right. Friday afternoon, no one will be there anymore. Kinda like last year when I presented at this conference at 8am on Friday. :-) That won't change how I prepare or how seriously I take it, but it will help me chill out this week.

Felt nice to be at work today. Heading back tomorrow. Everyone is going out of town by Wednesday, so I may or may not go into the office. Tom is doing well - has done a great job this week on his exercises. :-) His hair officially covers up his scar. Here is a picture of us at the aquarium last week. Hey, it's been a LONG time since I posted pictures! I still have spring break pictures hiding out on my memory card.

Today is sort of a milestone. It's the first day I have gotten up early and come to work. My job is flexible and I've been working at home since the accident, but you just can't beat the office for getting stuff done. And it's tough because I am still having trouble sleeping at night, so I want to sleep away the day, and I seriously had to fight it this morning. I knew I would just feel guilty if I slept late and didn't go to work right away, so I got up at 6:45 and made it to work by 8. Yay. Hopefully I'll go straight to sleep tonight. It may not seem like much, but I am happy that I made it here early. :-)

The impending trip to Spain really got me motivated on these extra 10 lbs. I was doing great by working out until I hurt my knee one day a couple weeks ago. Hurt isn't the right word - it didn't really hurt. But I did something to it that made it feel wrong to use. I guess I strained it or popped it or something. It is still goofy feeling but I think I can work out again this week, although I might have to stick with upper body stuff.

Anyway, thanks again to Heather who is constantly, inadvertently putting ideas in my head via blog, I started the "Special K Diet" last Wednesday, and I have to say, I am very happy with it so far. I have cereal for breakfast, a snack bar or some fruit at 10 (if I think about it), and a meal bar for lunch. I was mostly worried about the meal bar for lunch, but so far, it hasn't been an issue. We haven't had dinner much later than 6pm since I started since I'm so hungry by dinnertime, and that's a good thing since you aren't supposed to eat right before bed anyway.

Another thing I know helps is staying hydrated. I like buying big bottles of water because I will drink more water that way, but I hated buying bottles of water because we have really good tap water here. I found a 2.2 L jug at Walmart that I have been using daily for a couple weeks. I drink 2ish a day, which is about right considering the coffee I drink in the mornings (have to compensate). I like it! It's so easy to drink enough water this way.

So the thing with Special K is, you eat so little (500-600 calories) during the day that you don't have to worry much about what you're eating at night as long as you don't seriously overeat. I've been eating right at 1200 calories each day since I started, even with some wine the last couple of days.

I think this will be a quick way to drop a few more pounds before the trip. And the best part is, it requires next to 0 effort and it's inexpensive.

But we'll see if it actually turns out that way!

We're going to try me driving a stick shift again today. Last time we tried this was almost 6 years ago right after we started dating. It was in the old white Mustang, and it was nearly impossible. We joke saying Tom smoked 5 packs of cigarettes in that hour. I don't know what he'll do now that he doesn't smoke. I found out later that it was an exceptionally difficult clutch, so I'm hoping it's easier in the 2005 Mustang. When I was first learning how to drive, it was in the 1970 Belair, the Banana Boat, and I had such a hard time with it. I thought there was something wrong with me and I'd never get my license. One day, my sister let me drive her car, a newer, smaller Grand Am from Edgewood to Terrell and it was SO easy! PLEASE let that happen today. I need to learn how to drive this thing. Sometimes driving a cool car can make your day just a little nicer. I'm going to need some cool sunglasses, though.

I am wearing shorts today, and I think I'm the whitest I've ever been. I'm going for it anyway. Right now it looks like I'm wearing thigh-high white socks, I need to get to a believable skin tone before the Spain trip, which is one month away as of tomorrow.

After we try the Mustang, we're headed to Grapevine to pick out a local bottle of wine for a friend who is coming into town tomorrow. We also need to hit the grocery store, and I'm really wanting to go to Jo Ann's. Hopefully Tom feels like dealing with my shenanigans. I figure he'll be content as long as he has his beloved Mustang and a Diet DP. And I don't have enough money to spend TOO much time in Jo Ann's. Heather, this is all your fault, I want to start mistreating my windows this week. :-) (Click at your own risk.) BTW, this will be Tom's first time driving the Mustang since the accident. I know he'll be really happy. He'd marry a car if he could.

Tomorrow, we're planning to go to the Dallas World Aquarium with my friend, but I'm thinking we may need a Plan B in case she gets into town later than expected. They close at 5. I need to find a good non-chain place to take her to dinner, too. I'm pretty pumped, I think it'll be a nice day. But I hope I can come up with a good Plan B...I'm thinking the Nasher or the DMA or both, but it would be nice to come up with something closer to home, too.

Hope everyone else has a nice Sunday. I need to post some pictures soon. I have some from spring break and Amanda's new house.

Disclaimer: This is another post about the accident. It's probably about how lucky we are and how I'm having a hard time dealing anyway. If you're tired of reading this depressing hooey, here is your ticket out. (Really, I understand, I probably won't even read through it myself before posting!)

Man I am worn out.

Last time we went for a follow-up with the neurosurgeon, it felt like a waste of time and cash. See, Dr. Smith was Tom's surgeon that day, and he was on call the weekend of the accident. Dr. Cho was the neurosurgeon assigned to Tom. Dr. Smith and his nurses were in the OR. Dr. Cho and his nurses were there starting the next day. A month ago, we saw Dr. Cho's nurse. She came in, took a quick look at the incision, asked us if everything was going OK, and that was it. She wasn't really invested in this situation.

Today, we saw an OR nurse who was actually there. When she saw that Tom was coming in, she wanted to be the one who saw him. I was thrilled she was there. The surgeon and the other OR staff are sort of mythical to me since I didn't get to know them but I owe them so much. It's like being in the same room with your favorite celebrity. You act like an idiot (like me looking at her with my mouth open in disbelief that SHE'S ACTUALLY HERE, trying to remember her with her surgical cap on). She told us the other nurses didn't understand why she was so adament about being the one to see him, since he's "no big deal" (I guess because he is doing so well), but she told them, "No, you don't understand, he should be dead right now, it IS a big deal."

She came in because she wanted to tell Tom how close he was to dying, and how lucky he is. None of their staff expected him to make it during those first 7 days when he was out. :-( She said she knew it was bad when she got the call that she needed to "get there immediately", apparently that rarely happens. He was extremely unstable before and during the operation. Something about his brain not bouncing back in the days following the surgery, a positive sign they look for, made them not think he was going to live. She told us there were 5 anesthesia people in the OR, which she had never seen happen before (granted, I don't know how many surgeries she's been in, but hey, that explains the extra charge for "anesthesia complicated" on the bill.) They were yelling and frantic, telling the surgeon that they needed to get into his head right away. She is responsible for his haircut, for those of you privileged enough to see it. :-)

It just wasn't his time, she said.

I'm shell shocked today because this really happened. The part of me that automatically tries to see things from the outside says, "Yeah, yeah, OK, OK, it happened, we know it happened because you won't shut up about it." Time and progress tricked me into forgetting how bad things were at first. I almost convinced myself that we had been given worst-case scenarios from day one to make us feel good when things would go right. Today, I don't have that "I didn't really nearly lose him" feeling. It's obvious from the OR nurse's account that I did nearly lose him.

I'm not sure what the significance is in confronting his nearness to death. Why does it matter NOW when he is almost totally back? Somehow it does matter. Today, I feel shocked and sad - why shocked, though?? Because I let myself forget how it really happened, convinced myself that it happened differently than I remembered. Is this something I need to work through, or is it OK to forget for most of the time and be upset only when it's thrown into my face? Heck if I know. I know I can't run around upset everyday because "He nearly DIED!" I can't even spend everyday thilled because "He nearly died, but he's ALIVE!" I have to work. LOL But I'm tempted to do either all the time.

There is a difference between seeing how lucky you are compared to other people and how lucky you are compared only to yourself. The latter is a bit more unsettling. Anyone can find someone worse off than themselves and see that they are lucky. There is a lot of value in that, for sure. But being able to see how lucky you are compared on your own lows, man that is something. (Note: That may only make sense in my head, don't spend too much time on it. :-))

Anyway, I doubt you made it this far, but maybe you did. When you are having a high "spousal appreciation awareness" day, you may find the movie Up! to be pretty sad. It was a great movie, but I cried through half of it. How embarassing. It was worse than when I saw Armageddon but not as bad as when I saw the Notebook. For those who have seen it, it was mostly the concept of "Stuff I am going to do" that killed me. Everytime I recovered from crying, they got me again. It was relentless. But what a sweet, funny, thoughtful movie. And the 3D didn't give me a headache.

Our deep freeze door was left cracked a few days ago, thawing my prized stock pile of "things I got for a good deal and bought up like a madwoman." I think those days are over. I cooked up the food because it was still cold and you can refreeze it when it's cooked, but I know we will still end up losing about half of it.

I'm tired. I'd like a margarita but I don't want the calories. I should go get some red wine.