Thesis Time

I have been working on my thesis day and night since last Monday. Graham and I have hardly even spoken over the past two weeks.

Picture this:
I am out on the couch with my laptop, watching TV and typing.

Graham is in the back room playing World of Warcraft.

What a life huh?

What's made it even worse is that I've been renting Sex and the City to make me keep working on my thesis. Graham won't even be in the same room as the show, so yeah.. Life has been pretty boring.. tedious.. and full of thoughts of statistics, discussion points, and low-carb diets.

I cannot wait until April 23rd!!

Episcleritis

So, I don't know how many of you know this, but I suffer from chronic and painful "red eye". This means my eye gets really red occassionally, sometimes lasting from 2-6 days.

I've always thought it was dry eyes, but Visine hasn't really helped with the pressure and pain in my eye. So, one popped up again Monday morning, and Graham, dear husband he is, booked me an appointment with an opthalmologist today.

The good news is, it's not dry eyes.

The bad news is, it may be due to an autoimmune disease. I have what's called episcleritis. Luckily, I have the less severe form of inflammation. Scleritis can lead to blindness.

These diseases are scary things, like lupus, multiple sclerosis, Crohn's disease, and rheumatoid arthritis. I got really freaked out when the doctor told me I'd have to take steroids (prednisone), but it's just prednisone eye drops. Thank goodness!

Anyways, tests for autoimmune diseases are really expensive, so I don't think I'll be doing them anytime soon. I'd rather not think about it now. Yikes.

It's in the mail..

So, I've pretty much been working on statistics for my thesis for about 6 hours straight, and I desperately need a break. I'm deciding to do a mind dump and let you know about all the silly things that have been bothering me lately.

--There is a girl in the stats lab who won't stop talking, but she's quiet, so it's like murmuring, you know.. It annoyed me right off, and I didn't quite know why. Then... I suddenly realized that her voice sounds exactly like mine (at least.. the way I hear it recorded on anything). Is anyone else annoyed by the way their voice must sound to other people?

--There are these Russian/East European teenagers who hang out in a bike shelter in our apartment complex, smoking cigarettes and drinking beer and hard alcohol. Graham has kicked them out many times (they don't live in our complex), but they keep coming back. I discovered some really "cool" graffiti in the bike shelter.. Like a spray-prainted tank, someone's name (Ben), and a phrase that Graham and I constantly use: "Brathers for f--king life". Brathers huh? Do you think they just don't know how to spell, or that they like spelling it the way the pronounce "brothers"? Either way, I love saying it with a bad Russian accent. Also, early Saturday morning (around 6:00AM), the same hooligans were parked outside our building blasting music in their car. They stayed there for at least an hour, blasting crappy ol Euro-rap (I assume that's what the listen to), and preventing my good Saturday morning sleep-in. Graham and I did nothing, but we both had dreams we went out there and yelled at them. My dreams were filled with curse words.

--Speaking of dreams, I dreamed I lived in South Park this morning. Random huh?

--My thesis defense is 5 weeks from tomorrow. Is that not insane?? This will be one of the biggest events in my lifetime, and I'm not really that nervous yet.. Give it time.. give it time.

--This morning, I had to sear stew meat in some oil before putting it in the slow cooker. I stupidly put the meat in all at once, and managed not only to burn the crap out of my hands, but splatter hot oil all over my shirt, most likely ruining it. Sweet.

--I am very competitive. Graham and I are in a card-playing tournament with his brother and wife. It's fun because Graham's brother is super-competitive, but his wife is not. Therefore, I'm more inclined to play better than his wife because I want to win.

--Don't buy cheap ice cream. Graham (who should never shop alone apparently) was at WinCo and noticed the $3 gallon-sized container of vanilla. "What the hey?" he thought, and brought it home. Personally, I don't like icicles in my ice cream, nor do I like ice cream to taste like water, but Graham didn't know that cheap ice cream=ice, no cream. Sick.

--What is creepier to you? Ultrasounds posted on facebook, or constant picture updates of a growing "bun in the oven" belly on facebook?

--Graham's 18-year old cousin doesn't want to go to college.. at all. She's not a bum, or an idiot, just um.. lazy? Or just wants to get married? She said, "my mom didn't go to college". Well hon.. times are changin. I didn't know how to respond. I never even considered NOT going to college. Maybe it's just me.

Ok kids.. I think I'll work a bit more on my thesis and then head home. Btw, we FINALLY have the internet at home!!! For FREE! Yay!

Being a good wife

Ok, so one of the main reasons why I decided to become a Registered Dietitian is the fact that I LOVE food. I love cooking, I love planning meals, and love eating! (I do somewhat have a love-hate relationship with food... I love it, but if I eat too much of it, I get fat, which makes me hate it.)

So, every Sunday I plan out meals for Graham and I for the whole week. It's practically a job in itself because Graham is a hungry boy. I always include vegetables and/or fruits, and sometimes I even make dessert. I make enough for lunch the next day, and I will often make waffles and freeze them for Graham's breakfasts at work. Really--don't you want to be married to me?!

I don't know why I'm blogging about this because it's not really exciting, but whatever. I'm planning on making roast pork tenderloin tonight, taco soup tomorrow night, and Jamaican jerk chicken with coconut rice for Friday night. Not bad right?

P.S. I destroyed tonight's pork roast. We ended up eating at Burgerville.

Just our luck..

Graham and I consistently have bad luck wherever we go. Ok, so I can't really claim that I've had bad luck only since I met Graham, but my luck has suspiciously gotten worse over the past year.. Graham says it's his life..

Anyways, so we had a trip to Disneyland last weekend, and our flight was on Thursday afternoon. Graham came home and took a shower quickly after work, and his brother drove us to the airport. We were cutting it close--3:40 for a 4:25 flight--but Graham couldn't have come home from work any earlier. So, Alaska Airlines only lets you check in luggage 40 minutes before flights, so in order for us to get down to Orange County, we had to wait 3 hours for the next flight at 7:15. We reluctantly agreed--Graham was very calm about it. I was extremely pissed. I hate being delayed. To make it even worse, my mom yelled at me for "missing" the flight. Then, I kindly reminded her she put my married name, not my maiden name (which I hadn't changed yet), so there.

Then, I noticed the airline ticket said my married name. I have not changed my name yet, and we had just gotten our marriage license a few days before. We decided not to take a chance with security and had Graham's grandpa pick us up at the airport to run home and get the license. So, all was going good.. until we went through security, bought some marionberry jam for Joanna, and noticed that our flight was delayed until 7:45. Freaking pissed again (and not about to eat a sick airport hotdog), we decided to leave the "Secured" area of the Portland airport and eat in the food court. All was good again.. until we went through security again.

"What's this?!"
"Um ma'am.. that's some jelly I just bought from the airport store."
"Well it's bigger than 3 oz, so we can't let it through."
"Are you serious? I just bought it here. It still has the tag on it."
"We can't let it in unless you have the receipt."

So yeah, I threw the receipt away. I walked away from security freaking mad--I JUST bought the jam!! Then, Graham suggests we go get a copy of the receipt from the store. The cashier finds it and escorts us back to the security checkpoint. Get this--the people who had just helped us went on a break, leaving the jam nowhere to be found.. Graham maintains that they were now spreading the delicious jam on bread for PB&J's.

Anyways, we had a wonderful weekend in SoCal at Disneyland and in Hollywood, Santa Monica, and Venice Beach. Even though the weather is nice, I just don't think I want to live down there.. The culture and the people are just... different. I also think I'd have to lose about 50 pounds to not be self-conscious about my body. Then, I'd have to get a boob job, and so on.. Soooo.. no thanks to living in SoCal.

A nice ending for our trip was a delayed flight back home to Portland.. getting us home around midnight. We both had to work extra early Monday morning, so we just LOVE Alaska Airlines! Oh, and I left a lemon in the cupboard for too long and it got all moldy and made our apartment smell. Plus, Graham and I both got colds from somebody. Sweet.