Life Happens

I know I've gone missing from my blog for almost two weeks now but a lot has been going on, good and bad and everything in between. Last you heard from me, I had just gotten my braces off for a week - and wow, it was great! I spent a lot of time with my friends and even took a spontaneous trip to LA!  One of the best parts of the trip was having a beach day. It was perfect! I hadn't been to the beach in so long. Oh how I've missed you, California!!

It was a quick trip but a great one! I've missed my friends in southern California so much. It's amazing how with some people you can be apart so long and then just pick right back up where you left off.

Exactly a week after I got my braces off, they went right back on :( I knew this all along but it was still really hard on me. Technically it was my 3rd time getting braces on! Oh well, I'm just ready to get it over with. Anyways, as soon as they went back on, I was in serious pain. Mouth pain is so awful because you can't eat or talk or think... so awful... The pain stayed pretty constant until today when thank goodness it decided to let up. It's going to be a long 6 months for sure.

On Friday morning I noticed something wrong with Bailey (my dog). Her back leg had gotten cut open and looked really infected. I think it was days old by the time I found it because she had licked it raw and it seemed pretty bad. So I took her to the vet and $100 later we were back home with a leg wrap and antibiotics. The worst part is that Bailey is a very determind little dog and will stop at nothing to get this mini-cast off her leg. Since Friday its been a never-ending battle trying to keep her from ripping off her wrap and making her wound worse.

And in the midst of being in pain and dealing with a needy puppy, work and school are really picking up a lot! That is a great thing of course but I am beginning to feel overwhelmed and like I am working all the time. Really though, I'm not working all the time I just need to get better at prioritizing my time and sticking to a better schedule. Today I am finally getting caught up (hence the new blog post) and its feels like a huge weight being lifted.

And continually building on my stress is the fact that my husband and I have now been apart for 3 weeks and still have months more to go :(  Not being with him makes me feel like I'm missing a limb... its just not right. Most of the time I do okay with him being gone because I am so busy and can easily find things to do but there's only so much I can sugar-coat it: It sucks.

But the hardest part of my week by far was that a good friend of mine from high school, Jonathan, died in a motorcycle accident on Friday afternoon. He was only 23. What made me take the news even harder is that I saw him just a few days ago at Starbucks and he was as full of life as ever. Up to this point, I've never had to deal with the passing of a friend and its a strange feeling. It helps to know that he was a believer and he lived his life every day for the Lord, but its still hard for the family and friends he left... please please pray for the Sanchez family. Jonathan's sister Bianca is my sister's best friend and is like family to me. I can't even imagine what she is going through right now.

I guess after all of this the only thing to say is that life happens. Things gets busy and stressful and we are constantly on a roller coaster ride of ups and downs. You never know what tomorrow is going to hold, so try and make today a good one.

Picture time!

The braces are gone and I literally feel like a whole new person!

My alignment problems are all better so visually my teeth look great but my overbite and jaw issues (aka the reason I got them on in the first place) are not quite fixed so the braces are still going back on next Thursday :( Oh well...

For now I feel like a little kid on Christmas morning. I'm going out with the girls tonight - Prepare yourself for lots of pictures!!

The braces saga continues

Yesterday I hurdled over speed bump courtesy of the Air Force. Since we moved right in the middle of my orthodontic treatment, I needed to find a new orthodontist FAST in order to keep on track with my goal of getting them off in the April/May time period. I actually made appointments with several different orthodontists to see who was going to be the best fit for me. Through that I found the perfect orthodontist to finish out my treatment and he actually has the same plan for me as my orthodontist in Mississippi which is really great.

Now for the update... the only way to fix my deep overbite in my time frame without jaw surgery is to use a horrible device called "forsus" which is essentially modern-day headgear.  I only need to get it on the left side of my mouth but wow this thing looks super dramatic (see picture on right). GAH! Isn't that crazy looking? I will pretty much be robo-mouth. Has anybody out there had these before? Are they as painful as they look? Oh goodness. It really is the best method though to fix my problem. I mean, it does the same thing that those annoying rubber bands do but in a third of the time! If all goes well, I will only have to wear this contraption for 3 or 4 months and the braces will be OFF for good! And with time to spare for my sister's wedding...yesss!!

There is a piece of good news in all this (well most people probably wouldn't consider it good but I really really do haha). I am getting my braces off tomorrow for a whole week!! My new orthodontist needs to put on different brackets since they don't use the ones I have on currently (yeah, good job Mississippi) so that means I get them off for a week while my new ones are made. Obviously this is quite the extra hassle but words can literally not describe how excited I am to have them off for a whole week!!! I'm going to dress up and go out and feel pretty, while chewing gum the entire time :)

Change is so good.

Hey! Check me out! Like the makeover? I have OFFICIALLY split my personal and design blogs.

"Busy Thoughts" will live on at its new home (www.busythoughts.com) and will be all about blog design! It's under construction at the moment but I can't wait to get it launched. Stay tuned!

And now this blog is officially my "I can talk about whatever I feel like" blog :) Yay!

Getting away from it all

Even though we've been on "vacation" for 2 weeks at Jake's parents house, we really haven't been relaxing too much at all. Jake's been busy catching up with all of his friends and family and I've been trying to spend time with him as well as keep up on my workload and take care of the puppies - One of us is always doing something and it feels like we've barely even seen eachother! So we decided to take a spontaneous mini vacation to Kahneeta Resort in Central Oregon. The room prices were a steal since it was the Tuesday after Labor Day (which also meant that we basically had the resort to ourselves) and it was just the perfect way to spend some quality time together and get away from it all. We even decided to leave our computers at home {gasp!} Oh, it was wonderful! We played in the pool (a nice warm pool that's fed by the warm springs), relaxed in the spa under the stars, and enjoyed a fun night out. Well, actually, because the resort is in the middle of the desert there wasn't anywhere to go, so we ate at the yummy restaurant at the hotel which stared out over the beautiful desert mountains and then headed over to the Indian casino to test our luck. Apparently neither of us are big gamblers because after $10 worth of penny slots we lost interest in the whole thing. Oh, but I was a BIG winner. Check it out.

After I cashed out my big win, we spent the rest of the evening talking and laughing and people watching. It's so amazing all the characters you find at a casino! We had a lot of fun and it was nice to just be together. Just the two of us.This morning we slept late, enjoyed coffee on the balcony, and savored every moment of our little spontaneous getaway. Like I said, perfect.

And now we are back and I am dreading tomorrow. I won't see him again (my favorite person, my better half) until Thanksgiving and saying goodbye is always the hardest part...