The Day of Love

On Valentines Day, most people get chocolates and flowers and tacky stuffed animals. Not me!! This is what my guy scored for me this year:



Nothing says Happy Valentines Day like a tacky Valentines sweater!

Who Knew

This semester I decided to take a painting class at school.
I have never considered myself an artist, I just thought it would be an easy A.
I also never thought I would love it as much as I do!
It has turned out to be one of my favorite classes that I look forward to every B day.
Today in class we took pages of magazines and painted what we saw.
It was a silly little assignment to teach us shading and fading and what not.
Anyway, here is the picture I painted!
I have to say I am really proud of myself for this!
(keep in mind that I haven't ever painted anything with watercolor that hasn't been in a coloring book.)
Since I was so proud, of course I had to take a picture of it and send it to my parents.
Mom replied "Wow! We will have to hang that on the fridge!"
Dad replied " Did you really paint that or are you just pranking me?"

Obviously they were both pretty surprised. They just showed it in their own way :)

I guess I can blog again...

Yeah we all know I'm a terrible blogger. What else is new?

So in my last post I mentioned that I don't do well with people sticking needles in me. Do you want to hear the story? Alright here it goes....

Last year in my medical anatomy class, we got extra credit for participating in the blood drives at the school. Well my grade wasn't looking so great so I decided to go for it. They came and got me out of class and I filled out all of the paperwork. Then, they took me back to prick my finger to check my hemoglobin levels. I was doing pretty good until the blood stopped coming out of my finger and the girl started squeezing my finger to get more blood. That was not okay with me. I passed out in front of everyone. The girl sat me on the ground with my feet on a chair, got me some food and juice, and told me to not ever give blood again. Needless to say, I won't ever live that down.

I have avoided needles in me ever since.

So yesterday I was at my internship, (I'm doing rotations at Lakeview Hospital) and it was my day to be in the lab where they test blood and urine and all that. I go in and am talking with the tech and he is explaining everything when all of a sudden he says, "I would really like you to see how all of the machines work so lets take some blood and run all the tests for you!" Okay, so I'm thinking they are just going to prick my finger and run it through. I decided to be brave and try it out. So I go in a back room with the phlebotomist, and she pulls out a butterfly needle and tells me they are going to do a rainbow. That is a full scale blood test!! Like 5 tubes of blood! I can't even handle a stupid little finger prick! Anyway, I'm happy to tell you that I got as close as I could to passing out without actually passing out. Pretty impressive I must say! ;) The best part of it was that for the rest of my time in the lab, I just got to sit back and take it easy! And in case you were wondering, all of my blood tests came back great :)

All Better? Almost.

I have had big tonsils my whole life. Okay not just big, HUGE! Everyone always asked if they could see them and usually made some comment like "those are so gross" or "you should probably get those out". So I did. On June 9th I got my tonsils out. Don't think I am exaggerating when I say that it was the worst thing ever.
Thursday morning I woke up and got ready to go to the surgical center. When we got there, I changed into my gown and slippers and sat in my bed while the nurse gave me my IV. I didn't pass out, which was a miracle since I don't have such a great reputation with people sticking needles in my hands (that's another story for another time). Then, the anesthesiologist came in and talked to me for a while and wheeled me into the operating room. The next thing I knew I was in the recovery room. I felt so tired and I couldn't even open my eyes. The nurse tried to talk to me but all I remember telling her is that I wanted her to go get my mom. I got home and pretty much slept the rest of the day.
The next few days were really rough. I couldn't talk. I couldn't eat. My pain medicine was making me throw up. I got dizzy every time I got up. I was so lonely. I cried everyday for some reason or another. I had an awful taste in my mouth. I couldn't even open my mouth. I basically just hated my life.
After a week of nothing but sitting in bed I finally got up and got ready for the day. Just taking a shower and getting ready made me exhausted but I would not get back in that bed. It got easier and easier to do things everyday.
I am now on recovery day 11. I can pretty much eat anything. The pain has decreased a ton. I have lost about 20 pounds from my liquid diet. My voice still sounds funny but I can talk much better. I am looking forward to being completely back to normal!

I'm With the Band

One of the perks to having a boyfriend in a band....

VIP passes to Mix 107.9's Earthfest at the Gallivan Center! Earthfest is a just a huge concert where a bunch of bands perform. This year they had Shontelle, Iyaz, All Time Low, Cobra Starship, Boys Like Girls, The Downtown Fiction, and Zack's band which is called Brogan Kelby. Since I had a VIP pass, I got free food, I could go backstage, meet all the bands and pretty much just do whatever! It was definitely a busy day but it was a blast!

Brogan Kelby performing

The whole crew

Me and Martin from Boys Like Girls
(probably the nicest famous person I have ever met!)

Me and Zack

All the girls. We spend most of the day working at the merch booth. We sold over $400 worth of t shirts and posters and stickers.

Watching Cobra Starship perform from backstage. This is where I got to watch all the bands play!

Just for the Fun of It

So this year I have started playing lacrosse for Bountiful High. Lacrosse is kind of like football- show up for practice and you are on the team. The team was in pretty bad shape since 3/4 of the girls from last year had graduated. That left about 5 returning girls and you need at least 20 for a team. So I thought I would give it a shot.

The first week of practice was rough. Our coach was brand new and he had a team full of girls who had no idea what they were doing. And to top it off, our team was moved up to Division 1 which means the teams we play are a lot harder to beat. Eventually we got some new assistant coaches that worked us hard and we actually started to look like a team.

Our first game was on March 10. Everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. Our uniforms weren't ready yet, the lines on our field were painted wrong, it was really windy and cold, and we were playing a team that had just won a Las Vegas tournament. Obviously we lost.

The second game wasn't much better. Another really hard team and we were all really frustrated.

This past week we have had really intense practices and we are getting a lot better. Hopefully we might actually win some games!

Some things I have learned this season are:

• Don't get discouraged when you lose
• It takes A LOT of hard work to get as good as you want to be
• Practice really does make perfect
• Lacrosse is a team sport, not an individual sport
• If you get hit with a lacrosse ball, you are guaranteed to have a bruise there for a good, solid week
• And most importantly, it doesn't matter if you win or lose, we are all there just to have fun! (although I'm sure it's a lot more fun if you win)
  

When the Man of the House Goes Out of Town...

My mom and I order Pizza Factory take-out and watch Modern Family.