I had a terrible headache today, but it is finally gone. I am so glad!

I started back on the diet Sunday and didn't have any issues then or yesterday. Now, today I feel like I've been hit by a truck. But alas, this is what happens when you eat junk (seriously, my last 5 debits on my bank account are from fast food places) for a month, then switch to healthy suddenly. I just need to drink more water and I'll be fine by tomorrow or Thursday.

Who wouldn't be fine eating something like this? We tried it last night with some pork chops, and it was so good! And cheap...pork was like, $1.50, $1 for the marinade, $1.50 for the sprouts, $1.99 for the shallots, had garlic and boulion already. $6, and we are eating the leftovers for lunch.
http://www.cooksister.com/2008/11/garlicky-sauteed-brussels-sprouts.html

Yesterday, I found out I had been paid $700 more than they budgeted for me, so they had to find more money to pay for me. It was weird timing, because I am only taking 12 hours this semester, and I wanted to work more hours (more $$$!) I asked today, and my boss really wants me to work more, but they are looking for the money. The money is there, but it's in grants, so it's not always easy to get changes in the grant budget approved. :-S

Today I get to help my boss score intelligence assessments. I'm pretty excited. She's known for a year that I want to do that. Today, it just so happens we have two brothers taking assessments, and I'm working, so I get to help. Kinda cool. They are 5 and 7. The 7 year old, when asked what a mouse and a cat had in common, didn't mention that they were animals, had four legs, had whiskers, or anything I would've said. He said, "They're both on Tom and Jerry." LOL Smart kids crack me up.

I learned a lot about stats last night, which shouldn't be exciting, but it was. I went home with a "that was so cool!" buzz. All the stressing out I did on data collection last semester is totally worth it now they we are getting to analyze it!

I'm gonna get offline here and get back to work. I took a whole hour for lunch today because of my head. So glad it's better, time for a Dr. Pepper. Hope everyone is having a great week!

Wow, Tom has really gotten the home improvement bug. We normally start stuff and never finish, but I think the bedroom has him motivated, because of how nice it is to look around and say, "Oh, this looks good!"

Tom is converting one area of the garage into what he has dubbed the "man cave". He started talking a week ago about moving his office into the garage. I thought it was crazy, but then he mentioned that I could have his office, and then we would have yet another guest room. That might sound nutty, having TWO guest rooms, but we have so much furniture from his grandma's house that we could easily furnish another bedroom. And who knows, we might need an extra bedroom for OTHER reasons sometime in the next 15 years. ;-)

Anyway, the man cave. Yesterday, he installed a new light, so it's lit up bright instead of the one or two bare lightbulbs we had before. Today, he and his brother moved our old TV to the top of our garage freezer. AND, since he had the extra muscle handy, they moved the file cabinet out of the bedroom! Now, everything in our bedroom is officially in my hands, and I don't need any man help to finish tweaking my corners. I am nowhere near decorating in here, still in decluttering mode, but it is all lightweight clutter, now.

Our neighbor came over today and asked Tom if I'd kicked him out of the house. LOL! Tom is excited about the man cave, because his office was as far as humanly possible from the garage, and when he had a cool project pulled up on his computer, he would always have to walk back and forth. For example, his office isn't big enough for all his model airplane stuff, and it definitely isn't suitable for the welder I got him for Christmas. Now, he'll have plenty of room to tinker with his stuff, watch TV, have friends hang out (because you can really only fit 1 or 2 people in his office, comfortably), surf the web, whatever. I can't believe his project is coming together so well!

And you know what that means...I need to pick some paint colors for my office, once he moves outta there!

I got up early and headed to Edgewood today to go to Darren's funeral. It was a nice service. I cried through the whole damn thing. I have this memory of the night my sister died - Cathy (Darren's mom, our pastor's wife) hugged me tight in the hallway while I cried. I was trying to go be alone because it was so hard to hear my parents moaning in grief in the living room. It was the most terrible sound I have ever heard. But Cathy followed me back there and held me and comforted me while I cried. I am bringing this up because before the funeral today, she came out and starting walking toward where we were sitting, and I couldn't help it, I looked down and bawled. She came behind the pew, wrapped her arms around me, and gave me a big, long hug. I felt terrible, I mean, she is the one who should be bawling and being comforted, but it's just in her nature to care for other people, and that is what their whole family is dedicated to doing. I am so grateful that they care about my family. To be honest, I hadn't seen Darren in a few years so I know my everyday life isn't going to be impacted much by his death, but what is tearing me up about this is that I don't want them to go through all this. I don't want ANYONE to deal with this kind of thing. I hate that their family is in so much pain. They are truly good, caring people.

Anyway, I should be done with the depressing blogs soon. This is quite a bit to work through. I am glad I went today even though this is one of the most difficult days I've had in a while. I guess I should count that as a good thing. I really have had a good run the last few years, and I am thankful for the lack of days like today.

Sorry for such a depressing, picture free blog lately. I am bummed for good reasons. But there are good things happening too.

1. I went back to work this week. We have a new office space. I have a new computer there. (I don't have a real computer chair yet, but this isn't one of those whiney blogs.) It is really nice to be back at work. I miss working full time.

2. Fedex brought my Christmas present from Tom yesterday. My Dell Inspiron Mini 9. It's tiny! I love it. I am still getting used to the keyboard, but it's not too small, just a couple of keys in different places.

3. My boss brought me a Christmas present yesterday. It was an 8 GB flash drive (which I really needed for my new tiny laptop!) and a bag full of pecans from their farmhouse in Georgia. Cool, huh? I'm going to make these praline cookies and take them to a meeting we're having Monday.

4. Which leads me to my next point. I am so freakin' ready to get back on our diet!! I am blowing up like a balloon!

5. I am watching The Devil Wears Prada. Tom took me to see this on my birthday in 2006. What a good sport.

6. After the funeral tomorrow, I have to go to Fort Worth for an information session about getting my alternative certification to become a teacher. I have to teach for 3 years as a prerequisite for most ph.d.'s in education. Not like it's a huge chore. I am looking forward to the income (looking forward to a teacher's income! ha!) and the break from classes (working at a school! ha!) No seriously, I am looking forward to it. I have always wanted to teach. The big decision is whether to pursue a special ed or general ed certification. I am going to shadow a special ed teacher (a girl that also works for my boss) a few times this semester to check to check it out.

So there is a bright side. :-) Oh, I almost forgot the best thing. I've been fighting this awful cold, and at the same time I had this extremely painful ulcer in my mouth. Well, it's finally getting better! It's there but it doesn't sting anymore! Woot!

Dammit. Our old pastor's son, Darren, passed away last night. He was only 31 or 32. He got really sick last year, but I didn't know he stayed sick after he got out of the hospital. Their family is really special to us because they were so helpful after my sister died. They were the first people we called, the first at the house, and probably the last to leave. It's not fair for them to go through it too.

I have so many memories with Darren being a great friend to my family and a great youth minister. That family was a part of my life from when I was 10 til I graduated high school. I know there is a churchful of heartbroken youth mourning his death who have never had to deal with this stuff before. And they won't have Darren to help them through. :-(

It's a huge loss. Please keep his family in your prayers.

I have gotten SO MUCH DONE the last several days. I have almost entirely neglected the living room/kitchen area so I could fix up the master suite. Normally, I focus my cleaning in the living areas, so the master suite had become a total disaster. But last weekend, I started in the bathroom and cleaned it top to bottom. This was a big deal. Here are the major changes:

1. The countertop is clear except for a toothbrush cup, my blow dryer and straightener, and a jewelry box. The countertop is pretty big, and we had it totally covered with hairspray cans, the contents of our pockets from the last few months (I made a lot of money off Tom from cleaning it...LOL)

2. No clothes are on the floor! I have two hampers overflowing with clothes that we need to wash, but not a single thing is in the floor. And we've kept this up for a week. May not sound like a big deal, but for lazy cluttery people, this is huge.

The bathroom is totally clutter-free (I won't go as far as spotless...) and I wouldn't think twice about having anyone come in there now.

Then, the bedroom. I finally talked Tom into letting us get bedroom furniture. I figured with some of the nutty stuff we own that costs more than bedroom furniture, we shouldn't be looking like a bachelor from the early 90s lives in our bedroom. I should have taken "before" pics of all this stuff, but I'll start with describing the furniture. Tiny, old black particle board nightstands, chipped and damaged. No headboard. Big, bulky black entertainment center with huge manly speakers on either side of it. Then, my light colored particle board chest of drawers, and two other oak wood dressers. Black and light wood with no headboard and ugly lamps - I mean, who would even want to TRY to clean that and make it look nice?? Not me! So we had our clothes and clutter all over the place. It was bad.

Our new set is so NICE! It's real wood. The finish is almost black...it looks black unless you look really hard, then you can tell there is a brown tint to it. They called it merlot, fitting for us winos over here. The headboard has black leather, framed with the merlot wood. The nightstands are twice the size of the old ones, and 100 times better looking. I just love all of it. We also painted the wall behind the bed a color called "mushroom taupe". This is the first time we've painted in the house - all the other walls are white. I feel a painting bug coming on, but I'm sure the impending new semester will nip that in the bud.

I will take pics eventually, but I just needed to gush. There are still a few things that need to be tweaked (including 2 corners of clutter!!) before the final product is unveiled. But for now, I am tickled to death to have my master suite look so nice! It was worth all the hard work.

It's been a really busy day. We are getting our new bedroom furniture delivered tomorrow, so I painted and cleaned all day. The new color is nice! Will take pics after the room is ready.

But I wanted to check in, in memory of my sister Brandi who died in a car accident 11 years ago today. Someone crossed over the median on eastbound hwy 80 close to the intersection with 635, hit her head on, and they both died. Every year on the 3rd, I'm tempted to "relive" the night in my head, but it was a terrible time, and I don't really see the good in taking time to remember all that happened. My biggest loss was not getting to have a relationship with Brandi as adults. I cherish what I have with Danyelle and wish I could've had that with Brandi. She was a great big sister though.

So here is my annual public service announcement: You don't have to be drunk to be a bad driver. Drunk driving gets a lot of attention, but that is just ONE kind of idiotic driving. The guy who killed Brandi wasn't drinking. Sober people drive dangerously, too. You have to pay attention and be careful no matter what condition you're in.