What everyone should know about their husband . . .

I found this quiz a looooooong time ago on Jenny's blog The Sound You Hear Is . . . LIVING, and I'd been such a blog slacker as of late, so I never got around to posting it! I thought it was appropriate for today, as today is the final day to enter our fabulous MHR/Austin & Katy's Anniversary Giveaway!

How Well Do You Know Your Husband?

(blast from the past dating pic, lol!)

1. Sitting in front of the TV, what's on the screen? Mythbusters, Dirty Jobs, or Man v. Wild

2. You're out to eat; what kind of dressing does he get on his salad? No salad - Bacon Cheeseburger, every time! (If he got a salad, it would be ranch dressing)

3. What's one food he doesn't like? Seafood

4. You go out to a bar. What does he order? Long Island Iced Tea

5. Where did he go to high school? Homeschooled w/ Abeka curriculum then Public School for his senior year

6. What size shoe does he wear? 13 or 14 depending on the shoe

7. If he was to collect anything, what would it be? Money, lol (inside joke, sorry)!

8. What is his favorite type of sandwich? Cold cut trio with mayo and lots of pickles

9. What would this person eat everyday if he could? A bowl of cereal. He pretty much does that already :)

10. What is his favorite cereal? Cinnamon Toast Crunch

11. What would he never wear? He's pretty brave where fashion is concerned, but I don't think he'd be too keen on wearing women's clothing, lol :)

12. What is his favorite sports team? default to Iowa State Cyclones (he's not a big sports guy)

13. Who will he vote for? John McCain

14. Who is his best friend? Me! Of course! His parents, sister, Craig, Tyler, and Michael probably come pretty close :)



15. What is something you do that he wishes you wouldn't do? Get involved in girly drama - I try so hard, but it just sucks me in!!! (That's a cop-out, I should try harder, it's not something I'm proud of!)

16. How many states has he lived in? 2ish

17.What is his heritage? DUTCH!!!

18. You bake him a cake for his birthday, what kind of cake? Chocolate cake w/ chocolate frosting, or strawberry cake w/ strawberry frosting

19. Did he play sports in high school? Soccer, I don't think he was in swim team in high school, but he was when he was younger.

20. What could he spend hours doing? Riding his motorcycle.

21. Does he belong to any men's organizations? Nope.

So, how'd I do honey?

If anybody wants to participate, let me know I'd love to see it! It may also earn you a few extra entries in the giveaway as well! *smiling slyly* :)

Have a wonderful Thursday!

Things to do on a Friday night in a small town . . .

. . . go to the emergency room!!!



Yep, that's right. Life is certainly never boring, I'll tell you that much. You see, it all started at the fair. Austin and I rode up to Des Moines on a Harley owned by our friend Craig, and camped with Craig's family in their motor home. Well, when the time came that evening to move the bikes from general parking over to the campground, I had changed from my jeans to shorts, but didn't think much of it as we were just going to move the bike, not ride it for an extended period of time. So we hop on and cruise up to the campgrounds, where the parking is very, very tight. Thinking that I'll just get off real quick so that Austin can maneuver the bike more easily, I slide of the right side (big no-no) and land my exposed calf right on the VERY hot exhaust pipe! It didn't take me too long to move from that position, but as I was trying to get away from the pipe, I turned and scraped the back of my thigh on Craig's bike's license plate holder!

The burn hurt like the dickens, but didn't seem too bad, so we just walked down towards the fairgrounds and got some ointment from the police officers on duty, which cooled it and formed a kind of second skin which protected it nicely. This is what it looked like that Sunday morning:


It blistered and popped, and I thought that I was doing a fantastic job of keeping it clean. I put triple antibiotic ointment on it regularly and cleaned it out at least once a day with hydrogen peroxide, but by the end of the week, it was obviously infected and it hurt to even stand on my right leg for any period of time. By Friday night the redness of the infection had grown to an area of 8x11 centimeters at its widest and tallest points, and our friend Michael, with whom we were hanging out and playing games expressed his concern that it may be a Staph infection, and strongly suggested that we visit the emergency room immediately. This is what it looked like on Friday night:
(The flash washed it out a little bit, but I've drawn a line around where the redness was.)
(This one shows it a little bit better, but my calf just looked so defined in the first one, lol!)

Tyler and Emma went with us to the emergency room, and we were processed very quickly. The doctor said that even though it was not a Staph infection, it was very good that we had come right away because it was very infected. She prescribed an antibiotic and wrote on me with a surgery pen, instructing us to return if the infection spread rapidly in any direction, or if it was no better by Sunday night.
Tyler and Austin waiting for our names to be called (we were the only ones there)!

Thankfully, the antibiotics are doing their job and the infection has decreased significantly. It's still a little tender, but that's to be expected. We were a little shocked at the price tag on six pills: $134!!! Thank the Lord for good health, because I cannot imagine spending that kind of money on prescriptions on a too regular basis!

I've been feeling kind of funky all week, and I wasn't really sure why, so I did some research. The antibiotic, called Levaquin, is reported to have the following side effects: Headache, difficulty sleeping, agitation, anxiety, back and joint pain, changeable emotions, depression, difficulty concentrating, disorientation.(source) Which is a pretty good summary of the way I've been feeling. Thankfully this is the last day I will be taking it, so I'm really looking forward to the weekend.

Sorry I've been MIA this week. When I would get home from work, I would just crash - terrible headaches and the trouble sleeping at night has made me very emotional and weepy. Next week will be much better!

Thanks for reading, and for sticking with me through the slow weeks!

Our state fair . . .

. . . is a great state fair! Don't miss it, don't even be late!"

Yep, that's right! This weekend was spent at the world-famous, too good to be true, Iowa State Fair.

Now folks, you've got to understand, that everything I knew about Iowa (before I moved to our wonderful state), I learned from musicals. Ah, musicals!

They're in my blood. I can't help it. I grew up in a house where we believed that there truly is a song for every situation. And even if there isn't, we'll sing something anyway. My dad was in musicals all through high school, and he still graces the stage on occasion for the seasonal church drama or Christmas cantata, and I was in every production that my high school produced from my sophamore year on! They make me happy.

But I digress. The point of this post was to tell you all about the state fair. And Iowa. Most people don't realize or don't remember that two very famous musicals are set in Iowa, and give a little bit of insight into Iowa, and Iowa State Fair, life. For example, this number from The Music Man (one of my all time favorites):

(This song is the first 2 minutes and 28 seconds of this clip)

Lyrics - Iowa Stubborn lyrics

This is one instance where the musical got it pretty spot on. My very Iowan husband even agrees, and my father sings this song to him (us) every time we are there. Austin has even begun to learn the lyrics enough to sing along for parts :)

State Fair was my very first musical, so when I moved to Iowa I was very excited to experience, live and in person, the actual, honest-to-goodness Iowa State Fair, and this year it actually happened! And boy did we experience the state fair!

We got up bright and early on Saturday morning, and went over Craig's (Austin's boss and our good friend) house. Craig is a Harley guy, and he let us borrow his beautiful Dyna to ride to Des Moines with him and his brother Merle and sister-in-law Heidi. Craig's family gets a camping spot every year, and we had planned to camp with them on Saturday night.

We got to the fairgrounds around 10:00, dropped our stuff off at the camper, and went straight to breakfast (because the fair is mostly about eating, let's be serious now people) here:

We walked and walked and walked for HOURS!!! It was wonderful! We ate tons of great food, enjoyed all of the free samples, saw all of the prize winning vegetables and fruits, the butter cow, the butter Shawn Johnson (I'm not sure if it's actually a compliment to be immortalized in butter, but . . . whatever), and although the crowds did not simultaneously burst into perfectly harmonized song and beautifully choreographed dance like they do here:

We did see this:

A wonderfully talented one-man band!

And the most massive bull:

And hog:

And wasps (ew):

A good time was had by all (except for the wasp, who absolutely was harmed in the making of this post, and better him than me)!

The fair definitely lived up to my expectations, and I bet it becomes an annual tradition :)

Thanks for reading everybody!