Day in the Life | Shorts and Snippets

Cinco de Crazy-o

May 5, 2015 § 1 Comment

Early this morning, a little before 1 am, I woke up to some pretty severe pain on the lower right side of my body.

My alarm was set to go off at 1am anyway so I could check the baby cam we have set for our pregnant mare, so I figured I’d awoken due to force of habit. But by 1:15 I was in agony and the pain wasn’t going away.

I was tossing and turning enough to wake up my boyfriend, who took one look at the place I was clutching on my side and leapt out of bed and told me we were going to the emergency room. We both thought it was my appendix.

We got to the hospital just before 2am. Three and a half hours, an IV, some blood tests, a urine sample, a CAT scan, two ultrasounds, an ill-fitting hospital gown and a pair of hospital socks later, the doc came in to the little sectioned-off area where I was laying in my gurney and my poor boyfriend was falling asleep on the chair next to me and announced that all my tests came back normal.

Interestingly, infuriatingly, this isn’t the first time I’ve undergone multiple medical tests only to be told I was fine. Several years ago I was having severe stomach problems (which, in hindsight, were related to anxiety) and no one could diagnose anything even after putting me through almost every test in the book.

But earlier, they gave me two options: Wait out the day in the hospital and see if the pain got worse, or go home, take it easy, and wait it out. Mainly because the IV in my arm was driving me crazy, I said I’d go home. So my boyfriend drove us back to our apartment at 5:30am. We both called into work and slept till noon.

I made an appointment with a general practice doctor for Thursday for a follow up, which I’m looking forward to because I’m still in pain. It’s not as severe as it was when it woke me up, but it’s there.

Of course it’s fitting that I had an advising appointment today and four different people from work called to either make appointments for lessons or new volunteer orientations and one of my classes ends on Friday and I still have to start complete the final and another ends on Sunday – which is Mother’s Day – for which I still have two major assignments AND a final.

Life happens all at once sometimes, doesn’t it?

I suppose I should be thankful they didn’t find anything wrong. But right now I’m just confused and still having dull pain on my lower right side. And exhausted.

I hope everyone’s Cinco de Mayos were better than mine. 😉 At least I had this kitty to curl up next to today after we got home.

Whirlwind

April 16, 2015 § Leave a comment

You guys. Where is 2015 going?? I blinked and half of April went by. I think of blogposts I want to do each day but just don’t have time to write them!

I tend to focus too much on what I haven’t done as opposed to what I’ve accomplished in any given time frame. For example, over the past few weeks I still haven’t finished reading that book I said I was going to read, still haven’t done my grand cleaning/de-cluttering project, still haven’t completed a lot of schoolwork I need to get done before the semester ends (like finish field work, my signature case study and analysis, etc.), and I still haven’t ended world hunger. That last one was supposed to be a quick day project.

However, I did:

Watch the first three episodes of Game of Thrones and get hooked
Work
Agree to be a bridesmaid in my friend’s wedding coming up soon and get my dress
Somehow worked with my horse enough so that she stood perfectly still for the farriers after she nearly killed them two months ago while they tried to do her feet
Work
Buy an iPad mini
Start planning Tierra Madre Horse Sanctuary’s first annual benefit dinner and silent auction
Spend some time with my little bro after his accident (while hanging out with him I watched Forrest Gump for the first time. Amazing movie)
Work
Get awarded financial aid for the summer so I can take summer courses (Yay!)
Choose my classes for the summer
Work

Also, guys, my friend Leika at the ranch put music to this video of our resident terrorist, the Min – whose habits include rearing, kicking, bucking, nipping, and charging as well as he can (he has chronic laminitis in his front hooves) – and I can’t stop laughing over it. I’m too lazy to figure out how to embed it here so go over to Tierra Madre’s Facebook page and check it out.

Also, enjoy this random picture of quail eggs we found in our Timothy hay:

Babies, babies everywhere in the springtime!

Thanks for the random updates, Alexis, you say sarcastically. I know. My next structured blogpost might not come until my little break between this semester and my summer courses. Bear with me, because life is just crazy. But then again, I’m the type of person that likes to have about four hundred things going on at once. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

And now I gotta go watch Game of Thrones for a bit before I do homework and crash in bed. I’m on episode four and don’t think I’ll be able to watch just one!

Perspective

March 29, 2015 § Leave a comment

This blogpost was originally called “A Hellish Week,” because at first, that’s exactly what it was in my head. When I went back to read some of what I had spewed onto the paper (screen?), words written with irritation and anger and sadness, it became very clear to me which one of my wolves I was feeding.

So I gathered some perspective and tried to describe my week again.

OOO

This past week didn’t turn out the way I wanted it to, but then when does anything really go according to our plans?

But for every book I meant to read and didn’t touch, there are plenty of opportunities for me to finish them another time.

For every arrogant, belligerent man that screams at me for no reason after he refuses to stop walking down the middle of a narrow dirt road, leaving me no choice but to politely go around him – for every senseless, angry remark he may try to make to me about how I need to slow down even though I drive the speed limit, there are three times as many loving friends that encourage me to let it go and advise me on how to stop his harassment.

For every time I have a terrible scare with one of my horses falling and being unable to get back up for a few minutes, there are countless other instances with all of them that make me laugh and rejoice in my work.

For every rude, pushy client of my mother’s that calls her work phone eleven times in five minutes and tries to bully me when I finally grab the phone to tell her no, she’s not available and please leave a message, there are many more understanding customers out there that would simply leave a voicemail instead.

For every driver that runs a red light and nearly kills an innocent driver, there are twice as many bystanders that run to the scene of the crash to pry the door open and console the driver – in this case, my brother – until the paramedics come.

For every time I have to see my brother in his neck brace, for every picture I took of his wrecked car, including interior shots that portray the shattered glass and splattered blood on the seats, door, and airbag, I will have many more pictures to come of him living and enjoying his life.

And for every hellish week I have had and might have again, I have my ranch family, my parents and siblings, and the little family of my own to see me through it: My ornery little kitty, who knows when her mommy is sad and losing her mind, and my amazing boyfriend who cleans our entire apartment alone when I want to nothing more than curl up in bed for the afternoon and dances with me in our kitchen to no music to make me smile.

Sunday shenanigans

I posted this on my Insagram on March 26. We met for the first time on March 26, 2010 – five years and three days ago. (Yes, I still remember the date!)

I heard a quote once about how life is like a song: You need both the ups and downs to make a melody. I’ve always thought that sounded really nice, but lately I’ve been thinking that I want to take things one note at a time, so to speak. Just as you can’t listen to a song that hasn’t been written yet, you can’t look ahead at your life and expect things to turn out a certain way based on your current situation.

For every time I want to feed that wolf that spews resentment and anger, I will try to push myself to feed the other one instead.

Reeling

March 24, 2015 § 2 Comments

These past 48 hours have done a number on me.

On Sunday night, my mom called me with horrible news. Being a mom, she immediately prefaced her horrible news with, “He’s okay, but…”

My little brother, who was just released from an 11-day stay in the hospital in January after being treated for serious blood clots, was in a car accident.

He was driving under a freeway underpass when an Ford 150 ran a red arrow to make a left turn and absolutely plowed into his car. The officers that swarmed the scene said he was lucky to be alive.

He was taken to the hospital where they stitched up the gashes in his arms from the broken glass and got him in for a CAT scan where they discovered that he had a C2 fracture. For reference, the higher up in the vertebral column you get, the more fatal the injury, and C1 and C2 are the topmost parts of the human spine.

But miraculously, my little brother had and still has full range of movement. He could have been killed, but he wasn’t. Then he could have been paralyzed, but he wasn’t. He will have to wear a neck brace for three months and he’ll have surgery later on in his life when his neck starts to bother him…. but he is alive.

The F150 that hit him

I have been struggling so much to gather my thoughts and feelings these past 48 hours.

Sunday evening I was supposed to drive up to meet with my parents and older sister and little brother for dinner. Because I was exhausted and had been doing homework all day and didn’t feel like making the hour drive, I opted out. And then, hours later, I got the call from my mom.

What if that dinner could have been the last time I could have seen my brother?

I sobbed this to my boyfriend Sunday night after I heard the news, and he immediately told me I couldn’t think like that. I had no way of knowing. “Should have”s and “could have”s are meaningless. But I still thought it.

It was such a close call and it shook me up and woke me up and terrified me.

This afternoon I took my little sister to the mall so my mom could be there when they discharged him from the hospital. We’re back and I’m writing this from her house now, sitting on the couch listening to my little brother watch a TV show from bed in his room.

I could be hearing silence.

I could be hearing my family sobbing.

It’s meaningless to think these things but I can’t help it. I just can’t.

I’m just grateful from the depths of my soul that my little brother is okay. The neck brace sucks, he has to get some more button down shirts since that’s all he can wear for three months, and he’s on pain meds that are taking away his appetite, but he is alive.

Everything happens for a reason. I have to trust in that, even when I don’t know those reasons.

The KonMari Method & My Spring Cleaning Mission

March 22, 2015 § Leave a comment

IT’S HIGH TIME I return to blogging, I think. It’s fun to document things that are important in my life at the time for me to reflect on in the future.

One quick side trip, though: I’ll say right now I’ve noticed I have a tendency to filter which things I post online. For example, I like to keep my Facebook posts rather positive and upbeat. I journal everything else I want to be seen by my eyes only, 90% of which turns out to be me just needing to vent and 100% of which doesn’t need to be seen in a public setting.

For those of you who think my life is all roses and sunshine, sometimes it’s not, but I choose to view it that way, and I choose to post it that way! For those that want to follow along, I’ll be blogging roses and sunshine (with a little bit of clouds thrown in for good measure) all up in this Internet – probably on Sundays, my only day off, but blogging nonetheless.

Yeesh, that metaphor was cheesy. Just keep reading, k?

I saw this book on Instagram the other day, promptly bought it, and 20 pages into it I can tell it’s going to change my life.

The author, Marie Kondo, is an expert on tidiness. Yes, that’s a thing, and it’s awesome. Marie talks about the connection between a clean, organized place to live and the rest of one’s life in general: If you have your house in order, she says, you get the rest of your affairs in order as well. People that use her method of tidiness, the KonMari Method, never have untidy homes again and have reported living with more happiness and conviction. I Googled “KonMari Method Before & After” pics and was amazed. Go do it. You’ll be amazed too.

This week I’m going to finish Marie’s book, then starting next Sunday (my homework is calling to me today), I’m going crazy in our apartment using her method. It will be easier now that my boyfriend and I finally went to IKEA last night and bought a dresser for all my clothes. (When I moved out, I left my dresser at my mom’s house so my clothes have been piled up everywhere in our room.) But this method doesn’t just call for straight up cleaning – it apparently calls for some serious discarding. I’ve always been a bit of a hoarder, so this will be interesting. But we live in a 700ish square foot one-bedroom apartment, and I think I could stand to do my part in making it tidier.

Since I know you’re all on the edge of your seats, stay tuned!

In the meantime, I hope you all look for more roses and sunshine. Even if they’re hard to find, they’re always there.