Multitsking post - there's a lot going on people :)

DISCLAIMER: The following post is a long, rambling, and admittedly rather random piece of blogliture. I decided to post it anyway for the following reason: I always have dozens of ideas of topics that I would love to post about. So much so that I have pages and pages of notebook paper, and lined sticky notes from work of "post ideas" that have not ever made it to the screen. And all of the below topics are things that, if I allow myself to procrastinate, may become casualties of my busy-ness. That is not to say that there is anything particularly profound in any of them, they are just things that I am excited about, or need to get off of my chest. So, in addition to a short MHR Inspiration post, I give you - my stream of conciousness. I would like to apologize in advance if it is tremendously difficult to follow. I will make every effort to prevent it from being so

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5:16 Club
I have really fallen off the wagon - big and bad. I love the concept, I love the ladies who are involved, but I also deeply love the sleeping. Oh, how I love the sleeping!

That said, I have decided to put my best foot forward on this one, and give it another try. It has often been said, or read, that any action repeated over a span of 21 days becomes a habit, so, for the next twenty-one days, I am going to endeavor to rise and shine at 5:16 on the nose.

Any prayers and/or accountability in this area would be greatly appreciated.

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Spring Porch/Landscaping Project
Last night after we finished our delicious supper of leftovers :P, Austin and I were in our usual spots (on the couch) enjoying our usual post-supper activity (watching television), when he suddenly got the urge to go tear up our front porch. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, and it was a project we have been putting off for some time, so I joined him and we spent a fun-filled hour or so tearing up dusty outdoor carpet and rotting plywood that covered up older, more-rotted porch boards!


With a gorgeous weekend on the forecast, we are hoping that this weekend will consist of much more porch deconstruction, followed by the even-more-exciting re-construction, as well as (possibly - if we have time) some long-awaited landscaping!

(I am LOVING the hyphen this morning - really, i very-much am, lol)

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American Idol can dance, what!
Hi, my name is Katy, and I'm an addict.

I am totally in love with this season of American Idol and was happy as a clam with last night's results. When it was over, I said to Austin "I think this is the first season that I have ever totally agreed with the order of all of the vote-offs." So, kudos to you America, way to vote!

And that dance number at the beginning! Wowza! (Was I the only one who got the impression that they were lip-synching? No problem if they were because we all know that they can SANG, but it would take a LOT of breath control to dance like that and sing as well as they did, and I'm pretty sure they pre-recorded, but hey, I've been wrong before)

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Gotta Love This Weather
We have moved into that beautiful part of spring where the sun is out and the grass is growing and the tree are budding and the flowers are blooming! (For this weekend at least, I think it is supposed to rain all week next week, but I'll take what I can get at this point!)

You can tell we've been eskimos for too long, because the office starts clearing out at about 2:30 in the afternoon (except for those of us who are paid hourly, of course) and everyone and his brother has their motorcycle out and shined and is out soaking up the sun as quickly as humanly possible.

Our buddy Michael just purchased his first Harley, so we all engaged in a little post-work ride around the lake in the beautiful sunshine last night. I think I made it home in record time (shortened my 4 minute commute to about 2 and 1/2 - it's great when the lights/stop signs/traffic all align, lol!)

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Summer Supper Suggestions
I am starting to work on my meal plan for the month of May. Yes, I am a crazy person and I (loosely) plan our suppers for every evening of the month.

With that said, I am on the lookout for some quick and simple summery supper suggestions (I just love that alliteration :D). Any ideas would be appreciated - we're going for suppers that do not require the use of an oven, contain yumminess, and do not involve the purchasing of exotic (read "expensive") ingredients. Ready . . . GO! :) - Feel free to comment with your brilliantness, or e-mail me at katylinvw(at)yahoo dot com. If I get a lot of great recipes I will dedicate a post to sharing them with everybody! (Like how I threw in a bribe there?)

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MHR Inspiration #14 = Shout Out!!!!
I have made a new bloggy friend!!! Her name is Cher, and she has this brilliant blog Love, Actually Creative Ideas for Romance on a Budget.

It is absolutely adorable, and you must go and check it out as soon as you are able! Here's a blurb from her profile: "I grew up in Montana. Went to college in Utah. Recently moved to Boston, where my husband attends dental school. What began as an occasional hobby to impress my hubs has turned into an endless ambition to create romance on a budget...because every couple needs a little romance-therapy now and then!"

She has a TON of great ideas, and her site really fits in with the whole motivation behind ~ My Husband Rocks! ~ Fridays! :)

As a prompt for this week:

Include in your MHRF post one of your creative ideas for romance on a budget! We can all use a little romance from time to time, and right now is a great time to be sharing those budget ideas!

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Hope this wasn't too ridiculously random! Have a terrific Thursday!

Wedding Bells!

Last weekend, on March 21, 2009, our friends Tyler & Emma were married!

It was a beautiful ceremony!

Unity sand

Austin & me at the ceremony


Driving away from the church!


Austin got artsy while we were waiting for
the arrival of the wedding party

Time to cut the cake!

First dance!


The groom dancing with his mother, Dana,
one of my mother-in-law's best friends

Garter time!

To see the professional photos, go here.

We had a great time! It's always fun because you see so many people who you don't usually get to spend a lot of time with.


Alex & Chelsea


Kylie!

Carly, Mona & Anna

Mona, Dana, & Thelma (my mother-in-law)


The Three Musketeers
(Austin, Tyler - the groom, & Alex)

Austin & Me at the reception!
Yes, we totally changed in between!
It was a gorgeous day and
we wanted to ride the bike!

Thanks for reading, hope I didn't overload your picture appetite, lol!

My Favorite Things Monday ~ TempurPedic

Good morning and happy Monday, all! Hope everybody had a fabulous weekend! We enjoyed what will most likely be our last motorcycle trip of 2008 on Saturday. We drove around the countryside with our gang, the Wild Frogs! (lol, even saying that just makes me giggle :) ) We enjoyed lunch on the river, and the beautiful fall scenery. For 11 hours. No, that's not a typo. We literally rode the bikes for. eleven. hours. Which would have been fine, except we had forgotten to switch from our stock seat to our cushy after-market seat, so needless to say, our tushes hurt something awful by the end of the day. Not to sound like a complainer, but my joints were pretty sore, too, I understood the hips and knees and ankles, but elbows? I don't know . . .

All of this rambling does have a point. I promise. :) It brings me to a fun new meme I'm participating in:



When we got home from our gruelling ride, we got to go to bed. Which leads me to this week's "favorite thing>"

One of my new favorite things, our uber-fabulous, brand-new TempurPedic Deluxe Bed:

(We got just the matress and pillows, not the bed itself,

although I think the bed is beautiful,

they don't actually sell the headboards & footboards.)

We've had our new matress for a week, and it is phenomenal! They are everything the commercials say they are, which is very rare these days.

Both Austin and I have suffered from back pain, and on our old matress we would both have to shift positions frequently, and had quite a bit of trouble sleeping. The first night, Austin didn't sleep very well becuase we hadn't really broken it in, but every night since then, we've both slept better than we have in a long, long time! I never realized how much the quality of your sleep affects the quality of your days, but it is amazing. This new bed has been such a wonderful blessing!

Thanks for reading!

To participate in My Favorite Things Monday, or to read about more people's favorite things, visit Sarah at Everyday Elegance

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!