Liar liar, our building's on fire

Last night, Andy and I were woken up by the sound of an alarm. Now, the alarm in the building across the street from ours has gone off before... so in my sleepy haze I thought it was from the other building. Thankfully Andy got up to check. He opened our front door, then came racing back into the bedroom. "Get dressed! We've gotta go!!"

I sort of just assumed other people were leaving so that's why he said we should leave. I was just going to put some shoes on and go outside in my PJ's because I thought it would be a quick thing, but he was like, "No! Put on real clothes!" Ok!! So I threw on what I had worn to work that day, grabbed my coat, then grabbed my phone, wallet, and laptop. He was scrambling to grab his clarinet case. And then I opened the door...

Andy wasn't rushing me because people were leaving. He was rushing me because the second you opened the door you could smell smoke, and the entire hallway was hazy/smokey. Crap!! We FLEW down the stairs and out into the parking lot. No one else had gone outside... since it didn't seem like anyone else cared that our apartment building was burning down, I called 911.

3:50 AM - not a fun time to be outside

Thankfully the fire department is right around the corner, so a truck was there in no time. And then we waited. Only one other person came outside. We could see everyone else peeking out the windows (I have no idea how they were able to stand being inside... that alarm is sooo loud). Andy and I waited in his car because it was really cold and kind of rainy outside. We drove around so we could watch the truck.

After awhile the alarm finally stopped going off. We parked back in the lot, talked to the other guy who was still waiting outside, and then decided to go back inside. Sitting in the lobby were three firemen. Hey... is it ok for us to come back in??? We asked them what happened and they told us it was probably a faulty alarm. So I asked - uh, what about the smoke... oh yeah they saw that too but couldn't figure it out - probably someone's iron. An iron? Filling a large apartment hallway with smoke? Kind of doubtful. Of course my mind has since become very creative and I now think someone is making meth in our building. And honestly I don't think that is even as crazy as it sounds. We do not have stand-up neighbors to say the least.

I finally crawled back in bed a little after 5 am

STOP EVERYTHING. I was going to tell you how I had a hard time falling asleep because I was all pumped up with adrenaline, but I have to stop that story because I just got a call from the office of my apartment building.

"Did you call 911 last night?"
"Yes"
"Did you pull the alarm?"

ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?!?!?!?!? I'm livid. I want to move NOW. Yes gumshoe... what a genius plan... I'll pull the alarm and then call 911, by acting concerned no one will suspect that I'm really at fault. REALLY?!?!? Do they REALLY think that??????

Fury.

Ok wait stop again - Just talked to Andy on the phone. He suggested they were asking if I pulled the alarm because I saw/smelled smoke, rather than accusing me of pulling the alarm. In the last 24 hours, Andy has saved my life from a burning building, and put out the fire of rage I had. What a guy. ;)

I think I need some sleep. And probably a cookie.

April Showers

It's pouring rain today and that makes me.... HAPPY!! I know you all think I'm weird, but I love the rain. It reminds me of home, it means it's not too terribly cold out, AND it makes me feel extra productive.

It's a good thing rain makes me feel productive because I have a ton of stuff to do at Job #1, and after the mess that happened yesterday (my venue and guest artist backed out), I have even more stuff to do. Not cool. Thankfully I got my guest artist back on board, and am currently working out a plan B for the venue. Blah blah, very boring, but for me it's very stressful.

Thankfully between two meetings I had today, a package came that I've been waiting for....

Me dressed as Schnoodle the friendly alien!

We are doing a series of Tiny Tots concerts next month and this is the alien costume we are borrowing from the Jacksonville Symphony. When it came I couldn't resist trying it on... thankfully the person playing Schnoodle is much smaller than I am because the costume is tiny (I didn't even attempt to put on the pants). But I had fun walking around the office as an alien and managed to make two grown men jump, haha. Awesome.

It feels good to be productive. And on top of that I am on day three of being a healthy eater and I'm feeling "strong" - not like physically strong, but like.... no temptations are really bugging me. Part of what helped me stay excited about my attempt to get back on track was the package I got at home last night...

My new scale!

Thank you Groupon Goods! Now I can monitor my weight AND my body fat% and water weight %. Not that those things are entirely accurate on these kinds of scales, but hey... I'm still interested!

K... back to work!

2 weeks until surgery

The countdown is on... I've done a good job of not thinking about surgery too much, but every once in awhile, I really get nervous. Knowing how busy my next two weekends will be, I wanted to make sure I did something fun this last weekend - my last free weekend before I'm not too mobile.

Why wait until Friday to get the party started?? On Thursday I came home from work to a house that smelled amazing... Andy had actually made a meatloaf for dinner! Our friend Will came over and we hung out and had dinner, then left to meet up with Anna and Bips for some froyo!

Menchie's!!

After Menchie's we headed back to Anna and Bipul's apartment to watch "America's Worst Tattoos." It was incredible. Wait wait wait, I just did a google search for "America's worst tattoos" in hopes to post a picture of one I thought was especially bad, but sooo many terrible ones came up... you should really just go search for yourself. People are so weird.

Friday was Job #1 - we all went out to a Japanese Restaurant for a goodbye lunch (it was one of our VP's last days). The food was disgusting. I just can't make myself like Japanese food. I've tried. Nicole can attest to this... she watched me struggle through breakfast in Japan every morning only to race to my suitcase to grab one of the many power bars I had packed! Anyway, after work Andy and I went and saw Silver Lining's Playbook. It was so good! I don't laugh out loud during many movies, but I couldn't stop laughing during their dance. If you haven't seen it, you should.

Saturday was the BIG DAY OF FUN. I worked Job #2 (not part of the fun) but then Andy and I went on an adventure to the outlet mall and then to the Turning Stone Casino!!

Kind of a long drive, but worth it!

At the buffet!

Yes yes, we ate at the casino buffet, but hello, that's just where you have to eat when you go to a casino. It was alright, but I've had better. Then we gambled!!! We played the slots for awhile and once we lost our money on those we went up to the Roulette table and laid down $20...and won! We walked out with exactly as much money as we started with. It was suuuper fun.

Sunday morning started with a trip to take Sarah and Jon to the airport (I miss you already Sarah!!). Then I spent the rest of the day doing normal errands... laundry, grocery store... it was a productive day and the weather was fantastic, so all in all, a good end to the weekend.

And now it's Tuesday... back to work. Yesterday I worked, went tanning, made dinner, then walked on the treadmill for a bit (solid day). Today I'm working both jobs (boo). Things at Job #1 are actually pretty stressful right now. I have a lot to get accomplished before I'm out for a week because of my knee. Oy! Guess I better get back to it... have a good day!

It's supposedly Spring

Yesterday was: The first day of the month, the day after a holiday, and a Monday... It was like the perfect storm - can't think of a better day than that to get back on the health train.

I had quite the productive/healthy day. Got ready for work and had a healthy breakfast... then it was time for Job#1. My life in May is a whirlwind of responsibility at Job #1, which means April is a massive month of "getting ready." I had so much going on in my head, that I needed to get it down on paper. Usually one list would cut it. Well, not this month...

WALL OF ORGANIZATION

Side note - I actually had a meeting with two ladies in my office today and one of them actually took a picture of my wall. It truly is that impressive. ;-)

Anyway, back to Healthy Monday. I had a nice break from work when Andy took me out to lunch. We went to Panera, so lunch was also healthy! Then back to work, blah blah blah... 5:00 rolls around - I went home, did the dishes, put some laundry away and then made (healthy) dinner. After dinner I went tanning and then... the the gym.

Now I know what you're all thinking. The gym?! What about your knee?? Yes it hurts. And now that I've been to the gym it hurts even more. But I promise I only walked on the treadmill slowly (so slowly in fact that I didn't even change into a sports bra) so it's not like I was tearing anything... just probably making it more inflamed. There's no way I'll be able to do that every day, but I need to do a little something here and there so I'm not completely hopeless during the relay.

Ok ok, back to Healthy Monday. After the gym I hit up the grocery store for a few things, and while I shopped I talked to Emily on the phone! It was so nice to catch up with her, and our conversation made me even more excited to do the relay.

But the biggest news of Healthy Monday was that I got my surgery scheduled - April 23rd is the magic date. The lady actually called today to get all of my info, so I'm currently feeling hot and sick to my stomach. I wish this stuff didn't bother me so much. I'm apparently scheduled for: plica excision and cyst fenestration. I didn't know what those were so I started looking them up online, but that made me feel even sicker, so I just called my dad and he explained it all to me. :-) It's going to be a long 3 weeks of freaking out...

Today: Not much besides Job #1 and Job #2. Oh, it's also snowing today... I thought it was supposed to be Spring?? This weather is getting old.

Knee Results Are In

Before we get into the knee results I have to tell you about my surprisingly eventful Thursday....

I took a long lunch at Job #1 and had lunch at Panera with Sarah and her mom. Yay!! That was super fun. I love being an adopted daughter of the Gorton family. :-) After work, Andy and I headed to Casa Larga - I had an appointment to check out the place for a possible wedding venue, but Andy wasn't able to go to the appointment so we decided to head out there for a wine tasting so that he could at least see what it looked like. The wine tasting was pretty fun actually and only cost $2 to try 5 different wines. Awesome! 

After our wine tasting we headed to Anna and Bipul's for... HOLI!!!!

Lisa and Babs

Andy getting his colors!

Bips and Anna

According to Wikipedia, Holi (Hindi: होली, Nepali: होली,Punjabi: ਹੋਲੀ Sindhi: هولي) is a religious spring festival celebrated by Hindus as a festival of colours. According to Babs, Holi is a fun time of smearing colors on our faces and eating delicious Indian food. :-) 

Then Friday morning came... the knee appointment. The moment I've been waiting for.

Back to Building D

The exam table - my friend

I went in for my appointment and right away they pulled up my MRI pics. The images actually grossed me out, and when you add the talking to it... well, I had to lay down on the exam table because I felt so lightheaded I thought I was going to pass out. They brought me orange juice. I felt like such a wuss. 

Anyway, my MRI came back NEGATIVE for a meniscus tear. Yay! Sort of. I mean... I didn't want them to find a tear, but what was sort of frustrating was that they didn't really find anything wrong. Something has to be wrong... it hurts! What they did find was a "Baker's Cyst." Apparently what has happened... I've had a lot of inflammation: inflammation = fluid. When you have fluid in your knee it wants to take the path of least resistance, which is apparently to the back of your knee. Well all of my fluid traveled to the back of my knee and formed this cyst (I could have described this wrong but that's at least how I'm understanding it). 

That's not supposed to be there

So for all of this inflammation to have occurred (and they saw I still have inflammation behind my knee cap and on the sides of my knee) something at some point was unhappy in my knee (and still might be unhappy...they said the MRI can't show everything). They did another "poking" exam and I still had pain when they pressed on the side of my knee - they said the MRI didn't show that I should have pain there, but I do... 

I was given two options. Try physical therapy or get it scoped (surgery). After talking to the docs there, talking to my dad, having my dad talk to the ortho at his hospital, and talking to a lot of other people who have had knee surgeries... I'm going to get it scoped. They will go in and at the very least clean out my knee... and perhaps they might find something (and fix something) that the MRI didn't show. I'll be on crutches for 2-3 days. Not too bad. I'll admit that I'm very nervous, but for peace of mind, I just need to do it. If I do physical therapy and then my knee hurts one day, I'm always going to wonder if something is going on that shouldn't be. I'll be calling tomorrow to schedule my appointment, but I'm thinking it will be in a couple weeks.

Thankfully I had appointments to check out wedding venues Friday afternoon - that was a much needed distraction from the nervousness of my impending surgery. Anna and Lisa went with me (THANK YOU SO MUCH). First we checked out Casa Larga.

Casa Larga

From the outside it looked ok, but once you get into the reception room, as Anna put it... it looked like vomit, haha. That's why I brought them!! That place is officially ruled out.

The second venue visit was to Shadow Lake. I originally was interested in the club house but that proved to be too big for the number of people we will have. Surprisingly I actually liked the tent option they had.

See the tent on the right?

If push came to shove I'd be fine getting married there. I liked the lake and all of the trees, but other than that there was nothing really special about it. I think the search will continue. :-)

Saturday was Job #2. Then I had the most resourceful shopping trip of my life. Thanks to the power of coupons I got all of this....

Sandals, Conditioner, Curl Styling Product, Mascara, Make-up Remover Wipes, and a Face Mask

... for $7.26!!!! Of all of those purchases I was most proud of the the sandals. Originally $34.95, I got them for a penny. ONE PENNY!!! :-) Saturday night was spent at the Distillery with Andy, Sarah, and Jon. I love hanging out with those two. We had so much fun - I am already counting down to when Sarah will get back from Turks and Caicos, and she hasn't even left yet!

And now it is Easter Sunday! I slept in :-) then made scones. I was very impressed with this because I actually had to knead the dough. They actually turned out really well... just like the ones I like from the fair.

Doughy goodness

Fisher Scone!

Then Andy and I headed to Buffalo where we had Easter dinner at his Grandmother's. We're about to head back now (have to work in the morning) so I better wrap this up. All in all, and good Easter - although I'm feeling a little uncomfortably stuffed. Hope you all had a Hoppy Easter!!!

MRI

This morning started bright an early with my MRI appointment.

This is where the magic happened

I went in, filled out a bunch of paperwork, then I got called back. I appreciated their timeliness! First was changing into a fashionable hospital gown and robe. Thank goodness for the robe because the hospital gown they gave me was missing a tie so my backside was rather drafty!

Cute huh?

After a quick wait the lady led me back into the room. Talk about space aged!!! The machine was waaay more modern looking than what I was expecting. And the room felt very "modern" too because there were large screens on the walls and ceiling with super high def images of nature. They came in handy later...

I got up on the table, she put my knee in a "cage" and then slid me in. That is a tight space. I'm not claustrophobic, but I think if they had put my head in the machine, I would have been uncomfortable. I also had headphones on to block out the noise. YEAH RIGHT! That thing is so freaking loud. It sounded like Chewbacca with a jackhammer. The deal with the MRI is that you have to stay perfectly still... well let me tell you... it's hard to stay still when, with no warning, these giant loud noises start happening. At that point I was glad the pretty picture was on the ceiling because I just focused on that in an attempt to not be bothered by the noise.

The scan took about 25 minutes. Halfway through I started having some knee pain. My knee was locked in the cage and I just am not used to having my knee super straight that long. Once again my marathon mindset came in handy... I just ignored it so that they could finish (I had a call button that I could use to stop it at any point but I thought it would be dumb to stop it just to say, hey can I just bend my knee for a second?).

Once it was over I was out of there. I didn't even get to see anything! But I should get to see the images on Friday morning. I'm really curious to see what it will look like.

Two last videos... I searched for these so I could show them to Andy when I got back, and thought you guys might be interested. The first is a quick video showing the process of an MRI for a knee - it is exactly what I experienced (minus getting to see your images at the end). In the second one you can hear some of the different sounds the machine makes. But imagine it a thousand times louder than the video. :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YQJRjbdS6Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS_V_OgeX-U

I tried to upload the videos but I guess I'm not that blog-savy... just follow the links!

The rest of my day is pretty blah. Working at Job #1, then going home to sit&eat. At least there are good tv shows on tonight!

Festivities Part 2 -Steltenpolooza

Get ready for lots of pictures!

Thursday: I had an open rehearsal I was running, which is usually lame, but it was actually fun because it meant I got a sneak peek at Anna's concerto!

Dress Rehearsal for Anna

That night was her first performance of her concerto with the orchestra. I was so excited to see it - she looked amazing in her dress and of course played beautifully!! I couldn't have been happier for her. :-)

One performance down, two to go!

 Friday: Anna and Bipul's BIG DAY!!! At 11:00am, Andy and I headed to City Hall for two of our favorite people's wedding. I didn't know what to expect, but the small group made it even more special than I could have imagined. Enough talking... here are some pictures!

Dipu, Babs, Anna, and Lisa

Marriage Ceremony

It's Official!

We were surprised that they let us have free reign of the room, which of course meant we had to goof off.

Let's negotiate who will take out the trash in this marriage...

I object!

ORDER IN THE COURT!

Haha, it was a good time. After the ceremony we were off with the new Mr. and Mrs. to Dinosaur BBQ to celebrate!! It was such a great day and so fun to be a part of something so special. And of course Anna and Lisa's parents were there too which was awesome as I always look forward to their visits. :-)

Later that day I headed to Sarah's to curl her hair and then it was time for her birthday celebration with all of her Zumba friends. We had dinner at Selena's (mexican food) which is always delicious, and of course the company was great. Her friends are so nice and funny!

Saturday: Worked Job #2, ran some errands, then watched Anna perform her concerto with the orchestra again. If possible, she sounded even better than Thursday night!! After her concert we headed to TRATA for Anna's and Bips' wedding celebration. Shortly after arriving Anna's dad didn't feel well...I won't go into the details but he ended up spending the night in the hospital and we were all very concerned. I'm so glad he is feeling better!!!

Sunday: Slept in (much needed), went out to breakfast with Andy, then we headed to the RocLiving expo... sort of like a first time home buyers fair. I brought a big purse in hopes to load up on free stuff, but when the moment came I got too nervous to go up to talk to any of the tables. Damn how I wanted that free chip clip from Wells Fargo!!! lol. We were only there for about 10 minutes before we left and headed to Buffalo where we had dinner with his parents and brother. Busy busy weekend.

Monday: Back to work at Job #1. Blah. But after dinner, Andy and I met Anna, Bipul, Lisa, Ben, and Lydia for a night of bowling haha. It was actually really fun and I bowled the best two games ever!!

Lisa willing the pins down

Andy - chest pound of manhood post-strike

My "I got a strike" dance

Anna - come on!

Lydia...obviously a dancer. Check out that leg!

Bips - manly fist bump action

I was LB (Lady B)

DO YOU SEE MY SCORE??? DO YOU SEE HOW MANY STRIKES I GOT IN THAT GAME??? DO YOU SEE HOW THREE OF THEM ARE IN A ROW!?!?!?!?!?!? After bowling we went to the Distillery for half-priced appetizers and dessert. I stayed up waaaay too late but it was a lot of fun.

Tuesday: Right now I'm at Job #1 and soon will be headed to Job #2. I'm really not sure how I'll stay awake - as soon as I am done I'm going to bed. I have an eeeearly morning tomorrow because... I finally have my MRI! I'm so glad it's here. As fun as bowling was, my knees (yes both) started hurting half way through and they haven't stopped since. I want this to be over with!