And So It Begins

So last night was my first night of class.  It was great, once I finally managed to login. 

My internet connection kept shutting down my computer.  With half an hour until class started, I called Adam in a panic.  He offered to let me come over and use his computer.  Of course, it was raining and traffic was terrible, but I made it to his house with 5 minutes to spare!!

Last night was just an introduction to the course, and I expect pretty much the same thing tonight on my second class.  (And yes, my internet is working just fine again...) 

I'm actually kind of excited for my final project for this first class.  I just have to interview a legal professional (like a lawyer, judge, paralegal, police officer) and ask them questions about why they chose their field, what they do, that kind of thing.  I have to double check with my professor, but I may have it made!  My dad is in charge of the background detectives for the Dallas Police.  How much fun would it be to write a paper about that?  Very!!!

So, I've got an hour and a half until my next class.  Let's hope it won't be too hinky.  Wish me and my internet connection good luck!!

So Guess Who's Going to College...

Me!!!

I am registered and enrolled and starting on February 3rd. Crazy, huh?

I filled out an online form for Kaplan University giving them permission to contact me with info about their legal studies program last Monday. By Thursday everything was finished. It was all so fast, I'm still reeling. But I guess that's a good thing, because if I'd had the time to think about what I was doing, I probably would have talked myself out of it. I'm terrified!! I haven't been in school for ages. But I'm excited to start learning again. I like the growing process that comes from education.

I'm not planning on becoming a lawyer. No way. But I do like the idea of becoming the girl behind the curtain. I'm thinking of being a paralegal or legal assistant/secretary. Something where I'll be helping people.

Just thought I'd share the latest news in the Adventures of Marilyn!! Wish me luck, because I seriously need it!!

Struggling

I don't really like to post too many struggles up here. I try to stay positive and share only my happiest experiences.

But tonight I do not feel well. Like so many nights, I am wondering what on earth I managed to eat that has me feeling so sick. I try so hard to avoid the many things the doctor cautioned me against, but as the list grows, I find myself more frustrated and ill.

My doctor put me on a steroid I am supposed to ingest before meals. The idea is to line my intestines so that I will not feel so sick should I stumble across a food I'm allergic to. I have a list that the doctor says may only be the beginning. I asked him why me, and he said there's really no answer. No way of determining why, we just have to face the fact that this has happened and come up with a strategy to deal with it. Unfortunately, the only strategy to fight a food allergy is to avoid that particular food. Which so far includes wheat, milk, corn, chicken, beef, squash, coconut, peas, green beans, and cherries. These are just some of the foods I have been tested for and as long as I continue to get sick, they can continue to test for more allergies to try to determine what else my body can no longer process.

What is happening is this: when a foreign invader, such as an illness attacks your body, your body produces certain antibodies to fight off the invader. Unfortunately for me, my body has decided food is the evil invader. The only food I have an anaphylactic reaction to is citrus fruit. The other foods are the ones that the antibodies fight. It's not as deadly or dangerous as an anaphylactic response, but it is certainly painful.

I have learned that wheat, milk, and/or corn (usually in syrup form) are the basic ingredients in EVERYTHING.

Last night was our work Christmas party. We chose to meet at Cristina's Mexican Restaurant. I got a seafood meal knowing it included cheese but hoped the steroid would do its job. It did, until I woke up very early this morning. But the food tasted delicious and it was very nice not feeling hungry. We decided to draw names for Secret Santa this year, and my manager, Matt, drew my name. He got me a gluten-free cookbook, which I thought was incredibly sweet and thoughtful. To be clear, I am not allergic to gluten (according to my blood tests). I am allergic to wheat, the protein of which is gluten. The majority of gluten-free foods are wheat free by nature, since people who are gluten sensitive (meaning they have celiac's disease), are so sensitive, even the tiniest amount of gluten can cause serious damage to their intestines. I have to be careful however, in following a gluten-free diet, because a l0t of gluten-free (or GF) foods/flours/ingredients include cornstarch as a thickener. I was extremely grateful to receive this cookbook, because the author gives a list of basic ingredients to keep in the pantry (which I can pick and choose from based on my allergies) as well as a recipe for her "all purpose flour". And since her "flour" does not include cornstarch, this means I can hopefully start baking again. (Blueberry pancakes, here I come!!)

Adam is spending the week visiting family in New Orleans. I know he is having a good time, but I miss him terribly. I fear I have become something of a burden being so sick all the time. I hope he is enjoying the break (but not too much!). I have come to realize over the last several months how much I truly love him and depend on him. He is such an amazing person; a gift from God. He is so patient and thoughtful through all of this. I wonder how much more he can take.

My Super Late Thanksgiving Blog

I know Thanksgiving was four days ago but I just wanted to go ahead and make my official gratitude post.

I am so grateful for my family. They have been so loving and supportive and full of suggestions on how I can enjoy food without ingesting any of the many things I can no longer eat. I'd like to include Adam and his family in that. They have family members with health issues as well, so they've been very kind about making sure I can eat their food. Especially on Thanksgiving.

I have to give a humongous thank you to Adam. Discovering the various food allergies/intolerances that I have has been difficult and frustrating. It takes an hour for us to choose a restaurant if we want to go on a date and then we get there only to find they have next to nothing for me to choose from. There are nights when I'm nearly reduced to tears. But he's been patient with me and very good about letting me know how willing he is to work with my food allergies. On Thanksgiving, he was concerned there would not be enough food for me to eat. He knew I could eat sweet potatoes but didn't like them. So he went online and found a recipe for baked sweet potato fries. He even hand cut the potatoes. What an amazing guy. I was so touched that he would go to so much trouble for me. And the sweet potato fries were delicious!!

I was able to find a wheat-free gluten-free bread mix that I could use to make homemade bread. It even told me how to substitute items so the bread would be dairy free as well. I was scared I would kill the yeast. I thought for sure the bread would taste terrible. But, the yeast grew! I was so excited. And the bread was pretty yummy. It wasn't delicious... it needs some tweaking... but it was good, especially with honey.

I also wanted to express my gratitude for my ward members. They have been so kind to check on me when I'm not feeling well, and they are so quick to offer help. I'm so lucky to have such a kind group of young single adults to go to church with. I'm also extremely grateful to have so many family members nearby so I haven't needed any extra help.

Thankful

My Aunt uses the month of November as gratitude month on her blog. Each day she posts something she is thankful for. I've followed her example in the past couple of years, but this year I have let my busy schedule stop me from keeping up with my blog. But since today Adam and I had an early Thanksgiving with Mom and Jay, his kids, sister, and her husband, I figured I could use the excuse to say a few thank yous. What food I was able to eat was delicious and the company was tons of fun.

Adam had asked that we spend Thanksgiving day with his family. I was grateful to be invited, but a little bummed that I would be missing my Mom's fabulous turkey, so I was excited when Mom suggested an early Thanksgiving. I was very careful about the foods I chose to eat, hoping to minimize their impact. I ate very little mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and skipped the green beans and stuffing (made from scratch-even the bread!!! It's Mom's specialty-that was a tough decision to not eat it...), and mostly ate turkey and salad. I decided it would be okay to try Mom's pumpkin pie (also made from scratch) as long as I didn't eat the crust. BAD idea. I'm not sure what got to me, but it was not much fun. I watched the gang play UNO, which was fun, then laid out on the couch until I just couldn't take it anymore; I had to go home.

Before I left, Mom let me wash a couple loads of laundry (thanks Mom!), and showed me how to care for and wear my new contacts. I am grateful she would let me use her washer and dryer and especially that she would take the time to show me how to care for my contacts. Getting them in was pretty easy. Getting them back out was another story...

I am also grateful that Adam would take the time to come with me to "Thanksgiving" dinner. It is really nice to have someone special around for the holidays. Plus he was super sweet to take me home and make sure I was okay.

I started feeling better a couple of hours ago and realized I was pretty hungry. I hadn't eaten much at dinner because of my food allergies, and had not eaten prior to dinner since I'm used to stuffing myself silly at Thanksgiving. It's a little chilly down here, so I thought a bowl of chili sounded nice, and figured if I made some tonight, I would have enough for lunch tomorrow (and maybe the next day.) I had bought some of my favorite beans and a can of tomatoes last week at the grocery store with the intent of making a chili I could eat without getting sick. Tonight was the night. It was a complete experiment since I had no recipe to follow. I used spices that I generally like and tons of chili powder and hot sauce. It's a little different without beef, but I like how it turned out. I'm just hoping the high fructose corn syrup the beans were stored in (and drained out before cooking) won't kill me. (Yeah, I know, shame on me for forgetting to check the ingredients before buying the product...) So far so good... Hopefully this new recipe will be a winner!

I actually want to thank my dad for that one. When I was a teenager, he insisted that cook dinner one night a week so I could learn how to not only take care of myself, but my future family as well. I had to make something different every week, so I would have a handful of recipes. Once I learned how to follow a recipe, I started tweaking them. Adding a dash of this and that, or holding back an ingredient altogether. I learned to enjoy cooking because I felt like it was my own creation, and it makes me feel so good to know others are enjoying something I made for them. Well, tonight I was able to put my kitchen experimenting skills to the test and it worked! I'm really enjoying this chili. I'll know within the next hour if I can make it again. Keep your fingers crossed for me!! :) There's not much out there I can eat anymore. I mostly survive on fruit smoothies right now. My freezer is full of frozen fruit, while my refrigerator remains nearly bare. On the plus side, I think I'm losing weight, which is always good.

Anyway, I have tons to be grateful for, but I will save the rest for later. Life may be hard sometimes, but it's an adventure. I'm so grateful I have such a loving family. And amazing boyfriend. They make the trials a little easier. My sister is especially good at finding the silver lining in any struggle. I texted her a list of my food allergies and within half an hour she had sent me several helpful links to food allergy websites. I don't know how she found them so fast, but I'm grateful she's looking out for me. I was just wallowing in self-pity when I sent her that text, but she wouldn't let me waste away in misery. Thanks Karen.

And thanks to everyone else who is watching out for me. I know I have a lot of prayers out there on my behalf, and everyone's kind comments always lift me up.

Oh So Busy!!

A few of you may have noticed that I haven't updated my blog in a while... Well... I've been kinda busy. Adam has whisked me off from adventure to adventure.

First, we went to the Plano Balloon Festival. (Yes, I know, that was ages ago.) We had a pretty good time watching the balloons and browsing the vendors. The weather was kind of rough unfortunately, so not many balloons got off the ground. But we did enjoy the light show they put on that night.



Then, we headed to the Texas State Fair for a day of fun with Staci and Andrew. It was a perfect day for the fair. Not too crowded, not too sunny. Nice and cool and plenty to see and do. We had a great time watching the bird show and the dog show. We got to ride the Texas Star, plus Adam talked me into riding a carnival roller-coaster I regretted the rest of the day. (It was actually pretty good for a tiny roller-coaster. Andrew was too tall and had to sit in the front with Adam. Not only did the dramamine I took NOT work, we discovered I'm allergic to it too. Yeah, the phantom of the opera face made an appearance that night...) I was able to find a new amber butterfly ring at the Russian jewelry stand. I hunt them down every time I go to the fair. I LOVE their amber jewelry and have been needing to replace an old ring that lost a wing a couple years ago. I have to admit, I let Adam talk me into sharing a funnel cake that was well worth the trouble it caused later. Here we are on the ferris wheel:This is Adam being goofy as we were getting ready to go into the park. He was joking about putting on his work vest so we could easily find him in case he got lost. I don't know why but I adore this picture:



My friend and former co-worker, Aften, got married to her high school sweetheart, Dusty, on October 17. Adam and I were able to attend her wedding and reception. She was such a beautiful bride and we had a good time with my co-workers. We love Aften and Dusty and wish them all the best! Here we are at the reception waiting for cake (which we never got... we were too tired to wait, and really, I would have just had to watch everybody else enjoy it. But it looked fabulous!!)



Then, this weekend, we got to go to the Star Wars Concert at the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium. It was pretty cool to see the concert. They had clips from all the videos synced to a live orchestra playing the music that belonged with them. The Star Wars saga was narrated by C-3PO himself!! (The man who played him that is...) We tried to see some of the memorabilia that they had from the movies but it was so incredibly crowded. And I'm so short!! I saw the top of Darth Vadar's head as well as the top of Chewbacca. They had some scene sketches that were pretty cool too. And I was in such a hurry I forgot my camera!! I tried taking pictures with my phone but I don't really think they turned out very well. I'll see if I can't get a couple decent ones to put up.

We went for a couple hours to Six Flags to check out Fright Fest. I'd never been so I was anxious to see what it was all about. It's really just regular Six Flags but with Haunted "parks" that you can pay extra to go tour and get yourself scared. It's pretty cool, but we didn't have time to go see everything so we just picked one park to visit. We want to try to go back this weekend if we can to see everything else. I have to say, I actually got a little creeped out by a dead pirate who wouldn't stop following me. And just as we reached the exit and I thought I was safe, this guy in a black costume covered in leaves jumped out at me and scared the living daylights out of me!! It was pretty great. Adam got a huge kick out of it.

Also, Adam took me to see the Blue Angels. I think he said they are a group of F-18's from the Navy who tour the country to perform acrobatic flights. It was awesome to see them fly in formation. They did some pretty amazing tricks. I can't imagine the amount of practice these guys have to put in to perform safely. Not to mention the great deal of trust they must have for each other. The Marines and Army also had aircraft there. We got to wander around and get really close to some awesome airplanes and helicopters. There were even a few civilian helicopters so I got to see what kind of helicopter Adam will fly when he gets to the gulf in a couple years. Apparently the Blue Angels come to Alliance Airport in Fort Worth every year. It's most definitely worth checking out.
This is Adam standing next to the engine of a commercial American Airlines plane. That engine is HUGE!!

So now I head to bed, thoroughly exhausted just from thinking about all the fun we've jam-packed into the last couple of weeks!! I'm not really sure what our next adventure will be, but I'm sure it will be fantastic. Adam sure knows how to show a girl a good time. There's never a dull moment with him around!!

Happy Birthday!

Full of life
Adventurous

Loving
Lovable (extremely)
Obviously intelligent
Never a frown on this pretty face!

I just want to wish my little sister a very happy birthday. Today is Fallon's eighth birthday. My, how the time has flown!! She is so smart and fun. She definitely has Dad's quick wit.

Happy Birthday Fallon! I hope you had a fantastic day!!

Lately

There has been a lot going on in my world lately. I'm feeling a little lost.

My mom and her boyfriend finally got engaged. I'm happy for them because Mom deserves to be happy but the engagement has brought a lot of feelings and realizations to mind I'd never considered. What does Mom getting married to someone other than Dad mean for me and my sister? I mean in the eternal scheme of things.

I'm also feeling a little jealous and very selfish. I'm feeling very not proud of myself right now. I should just be happy for Mom but I can't help wishing it was me (and Adam). I know it will happen for us when the time is right. I'm just not very good at being patient.

I really am excited for Mom. She's very happy and that is good. Plus her ring is gorgeous and looks beautiful on her. (I got to approve it... that was fun-thanks, Jay!) I love both my parents very very much and I just want everyone to be happy.

Saturday with Adam

Ok, So I have tons to blog about and will update more later, but I wanted to take a moment and express my gratefulness for Adam.

What a sweetheart!!

Yesterday, after work, Adam picked me up for a day at Six Flags. We thought we were meeting some friends of his there, but they never made it. That was ok, since Adam and I were together, we knew we could have fun on our own. And what fun it was!! We only had a couple hours so we didn't ride too many rides. We finally got to ride one that always seems shut down or the line is ridiculously long. After wandering the park and having a grand time, Adam said I could pick our last ride. Really? I asked. Anything?

I'd been dying to try the Aquaman. I LOVE water rides, and was under the impression this would be some kind of water rollercoaster. I knew there was a big finish that created a humongous splash of water drenching people trying to exit the ride. I was so excited, and frankly surprised Adam agreed to do it. It wasn't until we reached the front of the line that Adam realized what he'd agreed to do. But... it was too late. :)

We climbed into a large boat and were on our way. Up the track and suddenly down. We created that large waterfallish splash drenching the people on the bridge above us as well as ourselves. Luckily we had a few dry spots left to wipe our faces on our shirts. We exited the boat and began to cross the bridge. We had plenty of time to get across, but as we passed the "wet zone", Adam turned around and planted himself behind the line. If we're gonna do this ride, we're gonna do it right he said. I'm game so I walked back over to him. Well... it was all a trick!! As soon as I was next to him, he grabbed me and held me to the inside of the wet zone. I knew his plan was to run as soon as the boat started to fall, so I grabbed hold of him. I was wet and he was slipping away, but luckily for me, several little girls ran up to the other side of Adam, trapping him in the wet zone. We stood up to face our fate, and at the last second, Adam ducked down behind me as I turned to hide my face in him.

Ha ha. I'm so short. You could see a perfect line on Adam where I kept him dry, right across his belly. There was no dry spot left on me however. I was completely and thoroughly soaked! My pants and shirt were suctioned to my skin and my flip flops were sliding on my feet as I shuffled along. We laughed and laughed about how Adam tried to throw me into the waterfall. It was fun, but we quickly realized the slippery flip flops were creating a massive blister. I finally had to take my shoes off as I hobbled out of the park.

Adam was so concerned about me walking barefoot, he insisted on carrying me piggy back style to the car. We were both soaking wet, so this was a rather difficult task, but we made it! I scraped my foot on the asphalt as he set me down, but thought I would be ok. When we got back to my apartment, I asked Adam if we could check my mail. He stopped the car by the office and I got out, barefoot, and hobbled to the mailbox. I guess I'd scraped my foot worse than I thought. I hobbled back to the car and we went parking spot hunting, but unfortunately all my neighbors had taken the "good" parking spots.

Adam was so upset about me limping to and from the mailbox he again insisted on carrying me to the door of my apartment! He must be super sore today!! But he's my hero!! I had such a great time and really appreciated his concern for me and my foot.

I love you ADAM!!!

A Wickedly Awesome Week!!

Saturday, Adam and I took the trek down to Austin to see the musical "Wicked". I was so excited, as I have been anxiously waiting for the chance to see "Wicked" for a few years now.

It was amazing!! I can't really say anything about the musical other than it was fabulous, I loved it and it is WAAAYYYY better than the book without giving anything away. Both Adam and I were amazed by the special effects, the singing, the costumes, set, everything! I highly recommend that anyone with the chance to see "Wicked" go right away!


After the play, Adam and I drove around Austin to see the sights. We saw the Capitol and enjoyed the hilly scenery. We even found a castle!


After a fantastic dinner at PF Chang's, Adam and I headed home.

Wednesday, we got to go to the Ranger's game with Adam's sister Staci and her husband Andrew. The Rangers won 6-4 with 2 homeruns!