A little update on life

On the drive to Boise Airport

So, we had our Seattle appointment last weekend...and it was great! Guess what? I'm OFF antibiotics! I am going to take herbs (liquid drops that taste like cleaning products and muddy lake water put together) for a few more months and then hopefully I'll be done! Woohoo!!!

Clay is doing well. He still has a ways to go, but he is still making huge improvements and is definitely on the right track!

Can I just say? I HATE TICKS! Oh my. I have heard 3 stories just in the past month of ticks being found on people, dogs, PILLOWS. Three different states too. And not ONE of these people were hiking or in the woods either! I committed to going to girls camp for 2 days...and after my appointment and realizing I'm pretty much done with this disease (crossing my fingers), I realized....I have spent over a year of my life on antibiotics and FIGHTING hard to get rid of this stupid Lyme Disease. Do I really want to risk going into the woods for two days and getting it again? One, ticks are more attracted to those who have been infected with Lyme...two, ticks are CRAZY everywhere this year because we had such a mild winter. I've already basically decided I never want to go camping again in my life, simply for the reason that I would have anxiety the entire time that I'd get at tick! So, it's pretty much official. I already told the camp director of our ward that I'm backing out...I feel bad, but its just the way it is for me. Even if people think I'm a freak who is overly anxious, I'll take it...if it means protecting myself a bit more from this danged disease. I definitely am a freak who is overly anxious cause I honestly think that they should cancel girls camp and do something else. Church wide. There are TOO MANY TICKS. How many girls will get Lyme disease this summer? I mean really. I don't mean to freak people out...it's just truly an epidemic and people need to be aware!

I've been trying to eat really good. Even better than normal. I have had a salad for lunch 3 days in a row now, which is pretty fantastic. Spinach, carrots, tomatoes, kidney beans (i prefer black but didn't have any). That's it! So simple and easy and tasty. I've been meaning to cook up a batch of quinoa so I could add that to my salads as well. I will do that tonight!

 In Seattle, I did cheat! I had blueberry pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream on top. And I had hot chocolate. YUM! I don't regret it. And it is so hard to stay eating good when you are out of town.

Tomorrow I am getting my hair done...I am so excited! I've never gotten this style before, so it'll be awesome. I will post pictures tomorrow...as long as it turns out :) I'm also getting my eyebrows waxed...which is just wonderful because I HATE plucking. It's just such a drag.

Overall, life is going pretty good. I am done with tax season, so work is a LOT less stressful...I am done with school...oh yeah! I will be a CPA in July. I could get my license sooner, but in Idaho you HAVE to renew your license every July, and pay a license fee, and so it doesn't make sense for me to pay a fee NOW and then pay again in less than two months. SO, I will just wait and get my license in July. Woohoo!

I've been reading some books. The Giver was good- a titch slow, but had some pretty cool symbolism and interesting plot. I started Water for Elephants...and couldn't finish it. One, it was slow...two, there was a part that was SO NASTY and I kept thinking, okay it will be over in the next paragraph...but it kept going and going till finally I was like OH my gosh I need to skip pages...so I'd skip skip skip and then finally it looked like it was over...and I was just so disturbed by it, and it was still just such a slow start for me...I decided I just wanted to be done. So I turned it back into the library. I am now reading Delirium, which so far is really intriguing.

Alright...tonight is Idol, and REVENGE! YES! Have you not started watching Revenge? Seriously- its the best. And Idol...I love Phillip...Colton and Elise were two of my fav's...but they are gone. And Joshua Ledet is good but the judges are WAY TOO OBSESSED WITH HIM. Why do they give him standing O's EVERY FREAKING TIME? My oh my.

Dante is still the sweet little/big light in our lives. How grateful I am we have him. He's such a big baby, big goofball, and really just such a fun doggy. We love him. We've been taking him to the new dog-park in town. It's just a HUGE fenced in area that dogs can play together. One side is for small dogs, the other for big dogs. It's separated. Anyway, he's been having some fun there. I think he enjoys going and greeting the humans more than the dogs.

Just a collage of my instagram photos from my phone...

-Hunger Games- LOVED LOVED LOVED!

-I went through a spout of eating quinoa, berries, and almonds, for at least one meal a day. Sometimes two...haha.

-When the weather is nice we've been TRYING to take Dante on walks...

-My kitchen has been a disaster the majority of the time.

-Sometimes it's clean, so when it is...I need to document it :)

-We went bowling the other night.

-I got a little mini bag of cadbury mini eggs on my birthday- they were so delicious. I had cheesecake and bread and cheats on my b-day and went to bed with a bad tummy ache. My birthday was it though- no more since then.

-I got some cute new clothes for my birthday.

-The last right corner pic is basically of me after work yesterday. Tired.

Well, it's official that I passed my classes....HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY! Do you know how sick I was of group work? VERY. Now I just need to send in my paperwork and stuff and it'll be official. It'll probably take a month or so, then I'll be a CPA :)

I try to think of anything I've been up to and I really can't think of anything except work and school. Pretty exciting. I haven't been to Zumba in ages. I just got too busy with school and didn't have time. I'm really excited to get back.

Probably the most exciting thing is that Clay has turned into a crazy lucky person! So for hunger games, he won free tickets from a bank...he entered on facebook and won. The other day the same bank said, "Guess a number between 0-331 and if you guess the right one you get two free movie tickets!" So I tell Clay to enter and he guesses 44. He says, "Let me know when I win". I look and about a second later, they announce that Clayton Phillipp won! So now we get two free movie tickets! When he went in to get them at the bank, they mentioned how he had won before. On his way out he said, "I'm sure I'll see you again!" or something like that :) Then when we went bowling, they were giving out prizes randomly, and they said...next person to get a strike gets a prize! It was literally like seconds before he bowled and he got a strike. hahaa. That prize wasn't as exciting though. But he got to go play nurf tag or something weird like that. Our other friends had some tickets for it as well. Anyway- the point is...I told Clay he has to enter everything now.

Alright, well I need to do the dishes at some point...and I need to remake a breakfast because I made a smoothie with stevia instead of agave and I just don't like it. Oh well. Cya!

Happenings

My blog posts have been pretty boring with no pictures...but oh well.

Tonight I worked on homework for two classes, paid all our bills and went through all the random mail and paperwork that piles high, filled the dishwasher (unfortunately there's still plenty of dishes on the counter...I don't really believe in hand-washing dishes if I can help it...so they can wait till tomorrow), tidied up the living room, and I am spent. Last night at mutual...I seriously was brain dead. I was feeling so stupid! I couldn't remember the name of anything. I was talking about some of my favorite tv shows, and couldn't remember the names of the show, or the names of my favorite characters! What the heck? Same with books. I just couldn't remember a thing. I kept stopping mid sentence and said, "Oh my gosh. I can't remember the name"...literally happened like 4 times in a row. And then when I meant to say "The guy from That's so Raven"....I said, "The guy from Everybody loves Raymond." and I knew it didn't sound right, but I couldn't figure it out for a full minute.

Tomorrow night I am seeing Hunger Games! I'm so excited! Tomorrow will be a loooong day. Did I tell you that Clay won tickets? He entered a drawing thing on facebook and won! It's pretty exciting.

I have a list of 20 things I want to get done after tax season. They are mostly organizing and cleaning things. This house is quite out of sorts...and that's totally fine with me right now. But I am really excited to get it all clean and stuff.

Well, I thought I had more to say...but that's pretty much it :) Till next time. 

A few things

1. I made these homemade lara bars...find recipe HERE. Seriously! DELICIOUS! All it has is dates, nuts, vanilla, and cocoa powder. Seriously...wonderful. Can't wait to try some of her other recipes.

2. I am SO EXCITED for Hunger Games. It's pretty pathetic how excited I am. I look up stuff online all the time! And guess what?! I'm going to the midnight premier...SO happy about that!

3. I got an early birthday present from Clay and it's a tv on my wall of my sewing room! I'm so excited about this because I love to watch Gilmore Girls and the OC while I sew (two best shows ever). And it's hooked up to the cable thingy so I can watch other things like American Idol. My fav's so far are Deandre, Colton, and that one girl who is blonde and has a raspy/adele-like voice who was in the bottom last week. I still haven't seen all of them though. But I feel like there's a bit too much, "Love your story and personality" instead of, "You have talent"...you know? I mean...he seems like a loveable guy but...the gentle giant guy? I can't remember his name. His voice...uhhh...sorry, but would never be famous in my lifetime. I think it'd be nice in a choir or something but not american idol.

4. One of my best friends growing up had a baby! Jenni! She is SO CUTE! Holy smokes. I'm so happy for her.

5. The other day I told Clay, "Man my face sure is looking good...I used to have so many big zits, now I have none!" Well...guess what showed up this morning? A BIG FATTY ON MY CHIN! Ugh. I thought I was grown up...not quite I suppose.

That's all for now.

OH YEAH- I decided. I'm going to have cheesecake on my birthday. And bread! I am so excited. But I'm just gonna get one slice at the restaurant, and not have any leftovers. It'll be great.

March 9

Interesting fact: Clayton revealed to me that he has NEVER seen a full house episode. EVER?! What the heck? He said he has seen snippets throughout his life, but has never seen an actual episode. I honestly didn't think anyone in this country could be living without seeing full house- at least in our generation! 

Next, I am so ready for school to be over. Did you know that I have to meet with a group online and chat/skype 4 different times! On three different nights! And they can last around an hour each! Its so stressful. 

I am in a wallpaper mood. I want to wallpaper. I doubt Clay would be into it. But I'm thinking on it. 

I turn 24 this month! 24! That's pretty exciting. Clay told me last night that he feels like I'm just barely out of high school. He's silly. I suppose time is all relative. I'm pretty excited about my bday though. I keep going back and forth on if I want one piece of cheesecake from Johnny Carino's or not. They have some pretty delicious cheesecake there. I've been goin so strong with no sugar or gluten...but it's my birthday! But do I really want to put all that sugar in my body? Still thinkin on it. 

One of my sisters found a tick on her 18 month old girlie. It stressed me out so much. I somehow felt guilty about it, which made no logical sense. Somehow satan's got this hold on my emotions when it comes to people I know getting or coming in contact with Lyme Disease. It's like I get these guilty feelings like it's my fault. Which I know isn't true. I think its just that because of my history with Lyme, I feel bad that it's caused others so much stress and worry...but I am grateful that I have the knowledge I do so that people don't get a tick and think, oh woops, let take that out and not think about it again. So, they are having the tick tested and going from there. 

I am really wanting to take a trip to California. It's so nice there. We have our family reunion in July though...in Oregon (which I CAN'T WAIT for!)...so you know, who knows what we can do vacation-wise. I just see pictures of my sisters living there with people wearing flip flops and t-shirts and the sunshine! It is sunshiney today though, here in Idaho...so that's nice. 

Well, that's all for now. Amy told me it was time to blog. SO, there you go :)

Chocolate coconut no-bakes

Ingredients:

1 cup coconut sugar

1/4 cup milk

1/4 cup coconut oil

1/4 cup raw almond butter

1/4 cocoa

1 1/2 oats, rolled (raw)

1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

Mix coconut sugar, milk, coconut oil, and cocoa in a saucepan. Bring to boil. Boil 1 1/2 minutes, while stirring. Add almond butter, vanilla and oats. Mix until smooth. Drop by 1 1/2 tbs onto a greased cookie sheet or parchment paper. Refrigerate for about 10 minutes. Eat. 

These are so tasty. I would tell you how long they last, but I ate them within 24 hours (i know.)

Did you know how good coconut oil is for you!?!?! There have been studies that show it halts, and even reverses Alzheimer's disease. AND reduces the risk for it.

To end with a bit of the Bachelor, Courtney totally dropped a bomb when she said "I am so sorry I hurt ben....I really cared about him..." Nice try covering up by saying you still do! I feel like she is conflicted because she does feel bad and wishes she was different, but I think a big part of it is she didn't realize how much it'd backlash on her. I still love her! haha! Seriously- why is everyone so harsh on her? She only says things in public that everyone says behind closed doors. Everyone said nasty things, as we saw tonight. Why is she the horrid one? She was confident, and there were times she DID try...I remember! And so I think all those girlies are just a little hypocritical and silly.

Things I always wonder when watching the Bachelor

1. Why don't the girls and Ben travel TOGETHER. Seems like such a waste of energy and gas and money to fly Ben separate from the girls. They are all going to the same place!

2. Aren't those mic's on their backs ULTRA uncomfortable? And I bet they ruin a lot of outfits too. How do they stick them on? What if they fell? What if they leaned against a wall and smooshed it? This lats episode I think it was Nikki who had a tight dress and her back looked like a cone-back.

3. What kind of people are running the camera's and mic's. I mean...they are ALWAYS around. What if they coughed, sneezed, burped, farted while the couple is having a really intimate/serious moment? What if one of the workers LAUGHED! How couldn't you?

4. You know when Ben was with someone on that mountain? What if it was freezing cold? I would probably be shivering. Not to mention...what if they are all the way up there and have to go pee? What if someone had DIARRHEA! Or on their period?! Yes...I think about these things! I mean...logistics on these dates are really confusing.

5. I don't really need to mention this cause its like the number ONE question on the fantasy suite date week...how would you like to be the 3rd girl? Really...she must feel really special and romantic.

6. I always wonder this one the first 3 weeks....WHAT in the heck do the women do when they aren't on a date?!! I mean...that's a lot of days loungin by the pool. Don't get me wrong- it sounds awesome. But it kind of makes sense why some of the girls get so close and become good friends...what else is there to do?!

7. What does BEN do when there's no date? I mean...sometimes there's like 3 dates. Are these episodes a week long? What does he do? Does he take breaks?

8. What if the food is gross? Sometimes on those dates- the food looks nasty to me. And sometimes people just don't like certain foods.

9. This one gets me EVERY episode. When do they do their confessionals?!?! Sometimes they are wearing the same outfit, sometimes its a different outfit, and sometimes I think...okay so they were just eating and kissing...did a producer say, "OKAY- time. Your turn to talk by yourself. Plug your ears Ben!" Cause that's another thing. Where is the other person? Probably don't another confessional in a different spot. But sometimes I just feel like...how is this going on?

10. When a woman goes home and the camera is in her face while she's humiliated and bawling...how freaking close is that camera? And how awkward does the camera man feel? Sometimes the cars seem really average size...so its like...yeah. Just awkward. 

Alright. Seriously- am I the only one wondering these things? I really really would LOVE to be on the set of the bachelor to just see how it all goes down.