Dirty laundry

Sometimes my mom watches Kristin's and Scott's four boys so that they can go out in the evening and have a date together. It works out well, especially since Kristin and Scott are living with us and Mom is able to watch the kids while still being able to keep an eye on me in case I happen to need something.

Kristin and Scott's youngest son Aaron is eight months old, which isn't really old enough to understand why his parents aren't around, but IS old enough to miss them! Sometimes he gets lonely after his older brothers go to bed, and he will start to cry even if my mom is holding him because he's lonely and misses his parents -- especially his daddy. He's quite a daddy's boy, and he usually spends the evening with his dad while his dad works on his computer, watches TV and things like that. When Aaron gets lonely and starts to fuss and cry, sometimes my mom will get one of Scott's "dirty" shirts and will wrap Aaron up in it. It's amazing how this helps to calm Aaron down, and will even put him to sleep. It's a great trick when the "real thing" isn't around.

(To clarify, when I say "dirty," I just mean a shirt that Scott has worn, but that hasn't been laundered yet -- not an actual stinky shirt!)

Shopaholic

In the past two months I've spent $850 on new clothes at Old Navy. Hear me out before you raise your eyebrows! I like to do a lot of my shopping online because it's a lot easier to buy things while sitting in my recliner then it is to go to the actual store. There are no tight corners to maneuver my wheelchair around and no large racks of clothing impeding my path. I can see all of my options just by saying, "mouse click."

As I've already written, I've spent hundreds of dollars shopping at Old Navy in recent weeks. The reason these online shopping excursions have been so expensive is because I usually buy two sizes in everything I buy so that I have a better chance of getting something that fits. Ultimately, a significant portion of what I buy ends up getting returned to the store.

Regardless if I shop online or in an actual store, I always spend a lot of money due to the fact that I can't try anything on until I'm at home and in my bed. Since I'm in a wheelchair and unable to get out of it at the store (in addition to the fact that other people have to dress me) it just makes sense to buy a lot and then return it after I've tried it on at home.

When all is said and done, my tab of $850 won't end up being near as much! Thank goodness for computers, the internet and online shopping!

A former obsession

When my sister Sharon was in town visiting a few weeks ago we went to the movies and were reminiscing about old times on the drive up and back. I was telling Sharon's friend Shellie about my obsession with Leonardo DiCaprio when I was in eighth grade. (I really was obsessed!) I remember begging my parents to let me see Titanic. They finally relented, and my dad took me and my sisters Annette and Kristin to see it.

Now that I'm older and wiser, I look back at my 13-year-old self and I see just how silly I was! If I were a 13-year-old girl right now, though, I'm sure I would have a similar obsession with the Twilight stars, or something like that. It's funny to reflect back on my life and remember what it was like to be a kid.

My love for Leo is something I definitely haven't lived down, because my sisters and friends still tease me about it today! And just for the record, I'm still a huge DiCaprio fan, but not for the same reasons. I think he is such an amazing actor, and the movie that I love him in most is Catch Me If You Can -- his portrayal of Frank Abagnale Jr. is so good!

What a strange dream!

I had the strangest dream last night that I just had to write about. I dreamt that I went to bed as a 25 year old, and I woke up as a 40 year old. I thought, "I can't believe I'm 40 years old!" (Not that 40 is so old, but aging 15 years overnight is a pretty extreme jump!

Here are a few odd things about my dream:
#1) I wasn't paralyzed. Actually, this isn't so odd because I'm usually not paralyzed in my dreams, but most people find this strange.
#2) In my dream I was sitting in my family room with an interesting makeup of people: my friends Hillarie and Nate, my mom and dad and my two uncles on my mom's side. This was a random group of people since my two uncles live hundreds of miles away and I don't see them very often at all. And most strangely, my dad has been dead for more than 11 years, so it's always interesting when he pops up in my dreams (which happens frequently).
#3) We were just sitting around, not talking, watching the weirdest show on TV -- the old console TV that my dad bought in 1988.

Needless to say, I was relieved to wake up and find that I was 25 again! I don't know what made me dream this -- maybe the fact that my birthday is one month from today or something like that. Who knows!

ABC's

I thought of a funny story that I wanted to write about. When I was in second grade we were taught how to write in cursive. The first two letters that we learned were "i” and "t." I was so excited that I was finally learning how to write like a grown-up, and I went home and wrote the word "it" over and over and over. Each afternoon my teacher introduced one or two new cursive letters. We went through the entire alphabet in lower case, and then we went through the alphabet again in upper case.

When report cards came out later in the quarter I was devastated to find out that I'd gotten a C in handwriting. I've never received a C before and I was sure that I was going to get in trouble for getting what I thought was such a poor grade. When my dad asked to see my report card I was sure that I was going to get scolded for my C, however, my dad didn't say anything about the C at all. I was so relieved! I kept working on my handwriting and by the end of the semester my handwriting grade was an A.

Penmanship was something that I tried hard at, and I eventually ended up with really nice handwriting. Granted, my handwriting wasn't the best in the world, but I always tried to write neatly and legibly. I always felt a sense of pride that I had nice handwriting because it seemed like handwriting (especially cursive) was (and is) becoming more and more of a lost art due to the ever growing prominence of computers.

Here are a couple samples of my handwriting, one cursive and one print: (these are from one of my notebooks that I took notes in for nursing school. On the bottom sample I had to write really small because my worksheets didn't have very much space on them, so it's kind of hard to see my print handwriting. They aren't the best pictures, but hopefully you can see some of the words)

If you can't tell, I always used pens with blue ink. I didn't like black ink at all. I just thought/think things written with blue ink look so much more personal. Silly, I know, but blue ink was always a must for me!

Pill popping

My mom and I watched an interesting episode of Oprah yesterday. It was about a lady who was addicted to prescription medication. (Everything from pain killers to antidepressants.) They added up all of the pills that she roughly takes per year, and the staggering result was more than 7000. Then a clear canister was brought out that was filled with 7000 pills. It was interesting to see the visual of all those pills in one canister. It was a lot!

I'm on lots of prescription medications because of my paralysis... about nine or 10 medications in all, and that averages out to about 30 pills a day, give or take a few. (I also included the over-the-counter drugs that I take everyday.) My mom and I wondered how many pills I'm taking every year, so we tallied it up and the answer was almost 11,000!! I wonder what a canister filled with my annual dose of pills would look like! (Of course, all of my pills are legit!)

Stick of gum, anyone?!

When I was in seventh grade I started my own little business to make some extra money. I'm not exactly sure how it started, but I sold gum to my classmates in my seventh hour science class... one stick of gum for a quarter. I don't know what was wrong with my classmates, because they actually bought it! They would seek me out and ask if I had any gum. The price was highway robbery, but if they were willing to pay $.25 for one piece of gum, then I didn't feel bad charging it! I actually made about $7 a week, which seemed like a lot to me, and helped supplement my small allowance.