Staying Sane

Last Tuesday became the last day that I will probably ever do the INSANITY work out. I was doing the fit test with Josh and Derek and during the power jumps I did something to my back. I'm not sure what exactly, but I do know that I was practically immobile for the rest of the day and the next. Now here I am one week later and I still feel the twinges of pain in my lower back. So I have decided that it's not worth the pain in causes. It seemed like a fun thing to do and a great way to get in shape, but more often than not I walked away in more pain than feeling I accomplished something. So my Insanity days are no more. From now on I'm just going to stick to running and free weights.

On a happier note I get to see my best friend in 10 days. This excites me to no end. It has been one llllloooooonnnnnngggggg year since we've seen each other. I've gone a tad overboard when it comes to preparing for the trip. But hey, this is a once in a life time thing and I figured I deserved a chance to splurge. Granted I've been buying things I don't necessarily need but things that I no doubt will have numerous chances to use for the rest of my time here on earth. Plus, North Face stuff is just cool. In my opinion you can never have too much North Face stuff. (If you hadn't guessed that's what I've been splurging on.)

INSANITY is BACK!!!

That's right folks, INSANITY has returned thanks to Ben Taylor. He went on Craigslist and found someone willing to part with this grueling form of torture for a lower price than as sold on TV. So last night we laced up our trainers (sorry I decided to become English for a second) and decided to give this thing another go.

You know what's truly sad? It was harder this time than it was the very first time we tried it. Granted when you basically sit on your ass for 3 months it's no wonder that trying to get back into the groove of working out is going to be tough. We've switched from early mornings to working out in the evenings. We'll see if we can keep it up this time. I must say, I was very disappointed in myself last night. As I stood there trying to struggle through the stupid work out all I kept thinking was, "I used to run half marathons and work out everyday. Why did I stop working out on a regular basis?!?" I kept kicking myself the rest of the night. Not literally of course, that would hurt a lot.

I think my motivation is slowly returning though. In a way it has to. I need to be in an least some sort of my shape for my approaching trip. Granted we won't be doing anything super, super strenuous but I'd like to be able to go on a hike without getting winded in 5 minutes.

So, here's to hoping that we stick with it this go around.

29 days till Africa!

Snow Day 2010

LOST

Continues to blow my mind.

This season is going to be so good.

That is all.

TV is Running My Life

Now that I no longer have classes or homework to worry about TV has taken control of my life once again. Granted this started about six months ago but I just now felt compelled to write about it. For Christmas I received the greatest tool to help me keep track of everything, my wonderful Tivo. Oh how I love it so. No longer do I have to worry about setting tapes or keeping up with when new shows are on. My Tivo does it all for me and I love it.

I have always loved television. I do like reading every now and then but to me nothing beats discovering a new TV show and getting hooked. And thanks to the technological advances that brought us DVDs it's even possible to revisit old favorites, which I've been doing a lot of lately.

Will & Grace and Friends have always been two of my favorite sitcoms. I have the complete series of both (well almost, somehow I'm still missing season 2 of W&G). Sadly I had lost touch with these shows because their syndication schedules kept changing and I would always seem to miss episodes when they were on TV. Recently I've found myself randomly popping in a DVD here and there of each show and just letting a disc run at a time. I'm finding that the longer you go without watching them the funnier they are when you actually do. Granted, I remember every punch line but more often I find myself laughing out loud. It's been really fun watching W&G because I would always quote this show with Amy (my older sister) and Sarah (my best friend). Watching it this week has brought back various memories I share with each of them.


As I might have mentioned before, LOST is back. I really wish I would have followed through with watching it from the beginning. I intended on doing that this past summer but Bones sidetracked me. I'm up to speed since I've been watching the show since season 2 but there are so many little things I've forgotten. I guess I owe this realization to Ben. He just finished watching season 4 and 5 so everything is still really fresh in his mind. He keeps talking about things that I only kinda, sort of remember, and it's driving me nuts. Oh well. There's a new episode on tonight which will make for a great week of theorizing and discussing. I think that's what I love most about Lost. There's a good number of us that watch it and are able to talk about it. The other day, Ben, Eugene, and I started talking about it and before I knew it an hour had passed. I think I might purchase a water cooler for Eugene's office. We've also talked about mounting huge dry erase boards in his office that we can write our Lost theories and make huge flow charts.

The TV list could go on and on. There are tons of shows on my "to watch list." Dexter (keep hearing how amazing it is), House (because I want to know what all the House/Cuddy business is about), and Firefly (because I now love Nathan Fillion) to name a few. If only they made a chip that you could stick in your brain to download everything so you wouldn't have to actually take the time to watch it. How amazing would that be?

New Pic

Thought I'd add a pic to the top of my blog. Meet my mom, pop, and sister. This was taken when I graduated last May with my Master's in Higher Education.

New Look and a Little Rambling

So I decided to change my blog template a little. I got tired of the old one. Since my favorite color is blue I figured I'd just go with this layout. Hope you like it and that it's pleasing to the eye.

These past two weeks have been crazy busy. Lots of little things keep popping up and my days are spent going from meeting to meeting. I can't complain too much. It's nice being busy but lots of stress has been brought on lately. I hoping that next week things will start to settle down a little bit more.

It looks like I'll be traveling to the health department once more tomorrow to get my typhoid and polio shots. If anything this trip is helping me get over my fear of needles. Maybe I'll get a tattoo after all. Leave it to Sarah to force me into liking something I once hated.

This weekend I will be heading to Dallas to see The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. For those who might not be aware, this is Heath Ledger's last film. It should be a good time. It looks like an amazing movie and I've heard nothing but good things about it. Derek, Amanda, Zack, and a slew of others are joining me, so that should be lots of fun. After the movie I plan on stopping by REI to pick up some things for my Africa trip.

For those who are aware of my Bones obsession I might fall into a bit of a depression in the near future. Sadly, there will be no new episodes until April. Stupid Fox and American Idol and the Winter Olympics. Two months with no Bones. Whatever will I do? Luckily, Lost has started up again to help keep my mind off of it.

41 days to go!

2 More Shots, Really?!?!

So I ventured to the Lewisville Health Department yesterday to acquire two more shots that I needed. The place was packed but the whole trip ended up taking like half an hour. Hep A shot was awesome, didn't even feel it. Hep B hurt like a son of gun. And I get to get another one of those in a month. Yay!

I also found out that now I also need to get a typhoid shot and a polio booster. What the h? Luckily the Health Department is wonderful and offers these shots for somewhat low prices.

I figure I'll give my arms a week to rest before getting my next round.

Shots

Have I ever mentioned that I hate needles? Because I do. So much so that I don't even give blood. I know this probably makes me a terrible person, but I can't stand them. This is one of the many reasons I have never gotten a tattoo and why it took me 24 years to get my ears pierced.

So imagine how I felt when I realized that traveling to Africa would mean, you guessed it, getting shots. After checking with the CDC I realized that I would need 3 vaccinations for my journey. Yellow Fever, Hep A, and Hep B shots. I went for my yellow fever shot a little over two weeks ago. Sit back and let me tell you the tale.

As I mentioned above I hate needles and I get extremely nervous whenever I have to get a shot. Knowing this I asked my friend Paige to go with me to get my shot. So Paige and I set out to the Health Department to get my first shot. I was only able to get the yellow fever because they were out of the others I needed. So we're patiently waiting for my number to be call (24 in case you were wondering). As we're sitting I started to get more and more fidgety. Paige finally looked at me and asked what was wrong. It was at this time that I informed her of my hatred of needles. Finally one of the nurses came up to me and handed me the info sheet on yellow fever. I began reading over the sheet out loud to Paige. When I started reading the possible side effects section (you know this could cause fever, headache, severe nerve damage, etc.) she ripped the sheet from my hands and told me to calm down. A couple minutes later the called my number. Paige asked if she needed to go back with me and I told her that I think I could be strong and do it alone.

So the nurse escorted me back to what looked like a regular office and sat me in a chair. She looked at me and asked if I was in any way pregnant. I told her "no" to which she responded, "are you sure?" Yeah lady I'm positive. 10 seconds later I was back out the door. The shot hurt just a tad. It was quite a pinch if you ask me. Then of course my arm burned a little bit afterward. But the important thing is I survived and didn't suffer from any random side effects.

Yay me!

Tomorrow afternoon I will venturing to the Health Department in Lewisville to get the rest of my shots. I'm not sure what to expect though. I looked into getting these shots at a couple of places and it seems that Hep A could possibly be a 2 shot series and the Hep B a 3 shots series. Ask me how excited I am about that.

45 days to go.

Countdown to Africa!

For those of you who may not know, in 50 days I'll be winging my way to Africa. That's right, I'm crossing the big blue ocean and going on what's sure to be the vacation of a lifetime. Granted, I've already been to some amazing places across the globe but what makes this trip stand out is that I'm making the journey there and back solo. I'm not gonna lie, that makes me really nervous. Sure I've traveled many a times but always with my family or a large group. It's safe to say though that my excitement outweighs my nervousness.

Some might wonder why I'm traveling to The Dark Continent. But if you know me at all (which if you read this blog you must because I doubt that I have a secret following for this thing made up of strangers) then you know it's to go and visit my best friend Sarah and her amazing husband Matt (that's them down below). They've been working in Sudan for the last year doing amazing things for Samaritan's Purse. Since they moved over there we've always talked about me going for a visit and that time is finally here. So, I thought it'd be fun to use the ol' blog to document things I'm doing to get ready for the trip.

As you can probably tell, if you're a dedicated reader, Insanity didn't work out so well. I think we lasted all of two weeks with that little venture. Oh well, I guess you could say it's better to have started and failed then to have not started at all.

Anyways, from now on I plan on updating you with all the little tidbits I feel like sharing as I prep for the longest vacation I've taken in awhile. Some fun things have already happened so I'll share those is other little blurbs.