If I had Gumption

If I had the gumption, I would carry these around and pass them out to every cute guy I saw. With my number written on the back.

Source: stylewithbenefits.com via Bethany on Pinterest

Oscar Night

For Oscar night, I got red carpet ready and curled my hair. And curled it again. And again. And after five or six times, it looked like this and I was ready to go.

By the time I left the house, half of my hair was flat again, but I still felt ready for the red carpet, so I left it and when to go see my friends Aaron and Mathieu.

After a couple of hours, and a MAJOR coughing attack, I no longer looked red carpet ready. Rather, I looked more like a druggie going through major withdraw symptoms, and a little bit homeless. The medicine had worn off and the cough had come back with a vengeance! It was humiliating.

I looked like this:

Flat hair, puffy and red-rimmed eyes, a sore throat and it's too bad I didn't wait to take the picture before I wiped the mascara that had run down the sides of my cheeks from my eyes tearing up so bad. Good grief, what a mess!

I had Melissa call some friends that live down the street to give me a blessing, and then I climbed in my bed and tried to fall to sleep.

The coughing wouldn't let me rest entirely. Instead, I had to wake up every hour on the hour with a reminder that I had taken all the codeine in my possession and DayQuill just wasn't going to cut it.

Seven Reasons I Hate My Room

1. The miasma. Whether it is an antiquated Victorian belief or not, you tell when you are in a sick room. And I hate being in a sick room. Besides, I know that even though I'm covering my mouth when I cough, there are little seedy germs everywhere!
2. The fact that it isn't clean again. I haven't had the strength to carry up loads of laundry. I haven't had the inclination to fold and put away laundry, and so I am right back to where I started a week ago.
3. My bed. I've hated my bed from the very beginning. With two foam things on it, it is still the most uncomfortable bed I've had in my entire years living in Provo. There is no position, no spot, no anything that makes this bed comfortable except sheer exhaustion and drugs. And once those have worn off, you crawl out of bed feeling like an invalid. I can't tell if my muscles are sore from being sick or from just laying here in bed the whole time. Plus, there's no headboard, so every time I lean against the wall, the mattress goes sliding out of place.
4. There's no TV. Rather, there is a TV, but it doesn't work because it is so old. It just sits in the corner taunting me. I have officially caught up on hulu.com and netflix.com, and my head hurts too much to even think about writing. I'm bored. Plain and simple.
5. The temperature. Either it is too hot. Or it is too cold. I can't seem to balance it out. Well, I couldn't until about five seconds ago. Right now, my window is open about three inches and my hair is wet. I'm almost at perfect temperature right now.
6. No one can come visit me. I'm sick = quarantined = no visitors.
7. I have to be in here. Well, I guess I don't have to be. And I am about ready to go downstairs and sit on the couch for a bit. But I feel really bad. Because when I'm sick, I like to stay locked up in my room in order to make sure no one else gets sick. But, I can't take it anymore! Melissa just Lysoled the whole place, so I hope beyond hope that my disease does not contaminate anyone else.

Also, my hands are shaking right now. It's been really fun trying to type this out. I think it is low blood sugar since nothing sounds appetizing right now and I haven't eaten all day. Melissa has gone to go get me some soup and stuff for toast. She and Savannah have also opened their drug cabinet to me, and boy! am I grateful! It is great to have roommates that look out for you, even though when they were sick, I was fairly certain I kept my distance.

Now, I'm just going to go downstairs and enjoy the fresh smell of Lysol, the book I just got in the mail (for free!) and maybe eat some soup.

Being Sick

I usually do not like blog posts about people's health. But I can see why people do it. After all, when you are sick, you feel absolutely miserable and it is a call for help and for sympathy.

I never get sick. Not really. Or at least, that is what I like to tell myself. I get run-down and worn out and occasionally a sniffle or two will show up to tell me that my body does not appreciate being sleep deprived. However, every once and a great while, I get miserably sick.

While I am sure there were times before this, I remember fairly distinctly coming home from Church one Sunday and demanding that my mom pull over the car (just by the railroad track bridge that you have to go under when headed from Troy to the church building...) so I could cast up my accounts. I was humiliated. But of course, I was also running a terrible fever - which is fairly miraculous in and of itself, because my family seems to hardly ever get a fever when we are supposed to. Except Mark, who has gone to the hospital several times for a really high temperature. I remember laying on the couch with a cold compress on my head, wrapped tightly in blankets, watching The Cutting Edge while my mom ran to the store to get medicine. It is the only time I remember my mom shopping on Sunday.

I'm pretty sure I went to school the next day (third grade with Mrs. Lemkeuhl) and having to go home early because I was still feeling poorly. And I think I was out a week.

I remember being out of commission for pink eye. I got sick once on Christmas Eve and had to stay home from the live nativity (I think). And I definitely got sick one year on New Year's Eve. I remember we were down in Kentucky for that one, and on the drive back, I was curled up into a ball with the chills and about three blankets piled on me one minute, and then extreme heat flashes the next. Once I had strep throat - no fever, and I still maintained regular eating and drinking habits (I was told, however, to stay away from deep-throat kissing). I had a cough that lasted for 6 weeks to 6 months... I can't really remember. Two years ago, I'm fairly certain (through a neighborhood nurse's diagnosis) I had the piggy flu for three days.

And that's it. I really don't get that sick.

It's a good thing, too, because when I am sick, I am a complete baby. I want to disappear from all responsibilities and sit in my bed... No, scratch that. I would rather have someone pushing me around in a wheelchair as I wheeze and cough, looking at English roses and such, with a blanket over my legs and a shawl wrapped around my shoulders.

Because I really, really hate feeling like I am going to pass out and throw up at the same time while my chest rattles and my cough gives me a major headache. I hate the feeling of having been in bed all day because my muscles are sore, and I can't tell if it is because I am sick or because I've been in bed all day. I had the stuffiness. And the heat flashes that turn into chills. I don't like being uncomfortable, and there is nothing more uncomfortable than being sick.

Especially when you know you have to go to work in the morning. On the plus side, liquid medicine does not usually bother me. You know people who hate cherry flavored candy because it tastes like cough syrup? I love cherry flavored candy. The kind that I bought for my chest cold is not the best tasting, but it certainly isn't as bad as all that. It's sitting here on my nightstand, just waiting for three more hours to pass so I can take my next dosage.

Cheese Breath

One must always be wary of what he is doing with blinds wide open and facing another apartment building. Why? Because one never does know if there are three girls sitting on the couch watching.

For instance, if you have a bit of a cheese addiction, you might consider closing your blinds so that no one sees how you polish off the rest of the shredded cheese, down to every shred left in the bag - to the point where you turn the bag inside out, wear it like a glove and lick the bag clean.

If you are going to pick bitty morsels off your pizza while - the girls might assume - preheating the oven, with the pizza close to your face and your pincers armed and ready, you might consider doing that in a private place.

Sure, you might think that being alone in your kitchen is in fact, a private place.... however, if you leave the blinds open, you might be victim to some very classic neighborhood peeping.

So listen, Cheese Breath, if before you put your pizza in the oven, you are going to stick your face right in that pizza and lick up all the extra shredded cheese you just added to it, you might remember to shut the blinds.

Because if you leave yourself vulnerably exposed to the neighborhood, there are going to be three girls watching you from their window - laughing hysterically and being grossed out by your dairy obsession.

And a little bit irritated when they wait the necessary 15 minutes for you to remove your pizza, only to have you take it directly out of your oven, and out of viewing range.