Because Bigfoot Exists

This morning I, along with my family and quite a few other people, ran in the first ever Bigfoot Awareness 1k Run. I felt obligated to since Craig is a founder, plus I was just excited to run a 1k - since that is not something many other people can claim they have participated in, before. Anyway, I'd call it a huge success. More people showed up than they'd planned, everyone was happy and the race went very well. As far as I know, everyone finished it and there were zero injuries. Good stuff. Oh, also..look at the cute shirts we got!! Always a plus.

**Fun Fact: You know my daddy? He finished 11th, overall! He's awesome like that.

My family at the finish line of the big race!

 My love and I just enjoying the pretty summer morning, supporting a good cause.

After the morning festivities, my sisters and I accompanied many of the Lifferth's to 7 Peaks water park where we spent several very fun hours going down slides, swimming, enjoying each others company and all that jazz. It was such a good day, guys.

Yep. Such a good day.

New Angus

Last Saturday something sad happened. Stay tuned for the story.

Misses Savannah and Adi had their last dance competition of the year (woo-hoo!) last Saturday in Taylorsville. My grandma and grandpa Brown came down from Boise to watch some of their dances, also, my aunt Meredith and cousin Beatrice came, too -- it was fun. Further into the day, my grandpa and Uncle Dave ran down to our house to grab something out of our garage. While they were there, we asked if they would check on Walter and Angus and make sure they were doing alright. Then my grandpa called us.. He told us that Angus was acting really weird, being shaky and strange. Sometimes Angus is just a weird-o so at first, we didn't think too much of it. We just asked grandpa to give him some water and assumed he'd be fine after that. As the day went on, though, the thought of Angus acting weird started to worry us a little. 

Finally, after a very long, but successful, dance competition, we made our way home. My cute daddy beat the four girls home and when we arrived, we found him sitting out in the garage with Walter and a very sickly looking Angus :( Poor little Angus was shaking like a leaf, soaking wet from head to toe, seemed terrified any time we tried to touch him, was very jumpy, and wouldn't blink, his eyes were weird and buggy, and his little tongue appeared to be stuck hanging out of his mouth. My dad had wrapped him up in a towel and was very worried about him. We all were once we saw him. Pretty quickly we decided we needed to take him to the doggie ER (yes, they have one of those) so we loaded him into his crate very carefully and mom was off with the little fella. 

Angus was a medical mystery. For two nights he stayed in the ER and he stayed one night at the vet and never were his doctors able to really tell us what was going on with the little Bunny Puppy. Apparently, he was showing signs of eating Snail Bait, but seeing as we do not own nor use Snail Bait, that couldn't have been it. I don't feel like the vets were all that helpful..

Eventually, the little trooper was able to come back home but was not doing well, at all. Sometimes, he looked 100% dead and you had to poke and prod him several times before he'd show you the slightest sign of life. He had an antibiotic he had to take daily for five days, eye cream (that is no fun to put on, btw), and some caloric goo that we had to feed him through a syringe (for a few days, we had to feed & water him through syringe, too). Much of his time home, he would lay motionless, looking rather dead (as shown, above.) Angus wouldn't eat, drink, go potty, poop, or even walk. If you held him, you would think he had no muscle in his body. His little head would flop over your arm and he'd hang there..again, looking very dead. It was so sad to see this little guy, once FULL of chaotic, psycho energy do absolutely nothing. Its like he wasn't even Angus, anymore. He had forgotten us, clearly, and had no idea what the heck was going on around him. Not even Walter, who he once idolized, could perk him up. On the rare occasion he would walk, his tail was down, curled under his body and he just looked sad and pathetic. Luckily, when he was in these weird dead-puppy periods, we could stick corn syrup in his mouth and he'd usually "perk" back up within an hour or so.

After talking with the family and Craig (who is family, too) we decided, together, that if he wasn't functioning or any kind of better by tuesday before we left for Disneyland, we would put him down :( We all hated the thought (some of us may have even shed a tear or two) but Angus wasn't happy and was a walking zombie. He was brain dead. It was awful. He would walk around our house in circles and do the exact same thing - he'd walk to a corner, smell the same place on the wall, walk under the chair, lick your foot, and repeat that same route over and over.

Now, back to the whole lack of knowing what the heck was going  on with my little Bunny.. You know my boyfriend, Craig? Turns out he is an awesome veterinarian. That cutie found several articles online about similar conditions to Angus and the symptoms matched Angus, almost perfectly. So, after studying these articles and having Dr. Craig check him out, we've decided the poor little man probably had multiple seizures or strokes. 

The saddest thing is, Angus isn't Angus, anymore. At all. He only looks like Angus (minus his kind of creepy/zombie left eye) but his personality is the exact opposite of what it once was. He is freakishly mellow, doesn't make a sound and is just..calm..which is so weird compared to the puppy we had last week. I think Angus really did loose his mind. He's just starting to recognize us, again, and acknowledge our noises, touches, etc.

Fast forward a couple days. Good things started to happen with Bunny. He ate on his own, he drank on his own, and after some q-tips shoved up uncomfortable places, he'd even poop and go potty on his own! It was really exciting! That is when we decided Angus didn't have a deadline, anymore. He'd be living past Tuesday, for sure. He wasn't completely helpless, anymore..so his little life was spared.

Now here we are, today, and I'm happy to tell you little Angus is still on the up-rise. He functions like a normal dog - just a very, very calm, mellow, "brain dead," clueless doggie. Its kind of cute, actually. This new Angus is growing on me :) He no longer walks circles 'round the house and sometimes, if you're lucky, he'll raise and wag his tail, and he's running and jumping, again!! We definitely aren't getting our old puppy back, but we're getting him back mentally, at least.

He's still got improving to do, but he's improving, nonetheless and I am completely thrilled that we don't have to put our sweet little guy down on tuesday. He's a fighter, that little guy is.

Baby Got Back (problems)

THE CHIROPRACTOR

This is starting to feel like my home away from home. 

*******************

A few weeks ago I went to the Chiropractor for the first time because for the last several months, my back has HURT. I went in with the expectation of bad news, because that is just how I work in medical settings, I'm either a medical mystery, or its some form of bad news. In this case, I guess it was both. But at least I was prepared.

My first visit, there, my doctor (who i like very much, btw) took a scan of my spine. This scan looked at each vertebra in my back and assigned each one a color. White=no pain. Yellow=slight pain. Green=pain. Blue=heavy pain. Red=severe pain.

With my intro to this post, I bet you can guess what color my whole spine was..with the exception of two vertebra. Yup, my entire spine was red, except two that were blue. Lucky me, eh?

So now, the Chiropractor employees and I are getting real close, seeing as I visit them 3-4 times a week. It isn't so bad, though. My family and Craig keep reminding me the pain and all the popping (i especially loathe neck-popping) will be worth it when, one day, my back feels better. I know they're right..I just like to whine, sometimes. :)

Ruptured

photo credit: craig

December 10th, 2011. It started off like any other day. I woke up, I was tired, blah, blah, blah... I dinked around for a few hours, keeping in mind I had tithing settlement at 2:30 but should get there around 1:50 because Dani {my best friend} had her appointment then and it never hurts to be with her more...

So I got in my car and I started driving to my church in Provo. I was feeling fine and was excited to see Dani, Craig and our two other friends, Eric and Ryan.

Then it happened.

I was probably two minutes {or so} away from the church when all the sudden the WORST pain I've ever felt pretty much attacked my lower abdomen. I don't know how to explain it, really. Cramps x1,000,000,000... something like that except it was more on the side of my body than the middle.. Annnnnyway..

I've had weird pains shoot through my body before so I just convinced myself it was nothing to worry about and I'd be fine in a few minutes. When I had parked my car and started walking towards the church, I sort of started to figure out this wasn't a normal pain I'd had before and 'a few minutes' wasn't going to heal me. I couldn't stand up straight for the life of me, the pain was constant - it never let up, and I couldn't think clearly. In short, I was in a whole lotta pain.

I let Dani know that I was hurting but wasn't trying to make a huge deal out of it. Wellp, I guess I don't have a good poker face because next thing I know, everyone was asking me what was wrong. I explained my symptoms and my friends were worried, telling me I should go to a doctor. Dani and I went into the bathroom to check it out, you know, see if there was any visible problem. I was kind of bruised but nothing too serious.

I had my interview with my awesome Bishop, then went back into the hall where Craig, Dani, Ryan and Eric were, also. I sat on the floor, trying to roll into a ball without drawing too much attention to myself and staying modest..

Sooo...You know you have a good best friend when she starts reading your mind and is saying the things you are too prideful to say. Dani told the boys I wasn't doing too well and thats when they started really pressuring me to go to the hospital. At first I was fighting it, telling them I'd be fine, but then I caved to the pressure. I was hurting and I wanted to be better...so the hospital seemed like the right place to go. After I received a blessing and some well-wishes, Craig and I were off.

Now I could sit here and bore you with details about my looong visit to the ER with my super sweet boyfriend, but boring blogs aren't fun to read, so I'll try to just gloss over what went down.

I got there and the funny little moments began. Lets just say, Craig now knows allllll about me and my body. They ask a lot of questions there. When was your last period? Was it normal? How much do you weigh? How tall are you? When is your birthday? Are you sexually active? Any chance you're pregnant? Have you had any pain going to the bathroom? Have you noticed blood in your urine, etc, etc. Ah yeah, that was fun... Oh, and I'm pretty sure they asked those same questions like, ten thousand times.

photo credit: craig

I had to give a urine sample, I was hooked up to an IV (scary) and had some blood taken, I had a cat scan, I was given some weird thing through my IV that made me warm and feel weird and made my fingers and toes hurt and gave me this funky metal taste in my mouth, I was poked and pressed, I was given some morphine...which is an excellent drug. I now see why people become addicted to things. I felt great! No pain after that pumped through my veins.

At first, the doctors/nurses had their suspicions that I could have something wrong with my appendix but it was more likely that it was kidney stones. But of course, it would take a while before we'd really be able to know anything.

photo credit: craig

Craig and I did a lot of sitting around and waiting. Like, a lot. Poor Craig. I'm sure this isn't how he wanted to spend his saturday. However, like I've said before, he's the biggest sweetheart ever! He never complained and he was a great distraction from the pain, sitting there next to me, smiling and ready to talk, always asking how he could make me more comfortable, laughing with me when the drugs took over and I became loopy and twitchy, trying to get me to fall asleep, listening to the doctors and nurses because I was too drugged to really pay attention and the list goes on and on. I'm really not sure how in the world I got so lucky to be with this great guy :) Yay.

A few hours later they finally had a diagnosis for me.. "The bad news,"the doctor said, was that I still would hurt. "The good news?" Its nothing serious. Just some ruptured ovarian cysts which are apparently ranked in the top 10 as far as pain goes. (i agree.) He informed me after a few days I should be as good as new and feel great. Whew. Dodged a bullet there, right?

Oh, and just in case I didn't tell everyone there enough times that there was no chance I was pregnant and that I'm not sexually active, they went ahead and took a pregnancy test anyway. It came back negative. Told ya.

craig's doggie and me, nappin' on the couch
photo credit: craig

After our fun little adventure at the ER Craig took me back to his house where I crashed on his couch for hours! I took a few naps, we watched movies, I ate toast, it was good. Craig and his great family took good, good care of me. Like I've said before, I'm one lucky gal. Very, very.

A few hours later, my cute Craig took me home and I slept pretty decently that night... Now here we are two days later and just like my doc said, every day I'm feeling a little better! The Lortab sure helps me feel better, too :) 

Meds

I'm SO thankful for medicine.

The last two days I have NOT felt good. The blame goes to being a girl - cramps murder me and effect my whole body - and I think I've got some sort of sinus cold thing going on and I have a deadly headache. Its the opposite of joyful.

Now, unfortunately medicine only works on me about 40% of the time, but when it does work, theres pretty much nothing better in the world.

..and hey, when medicine doesn't do the job, naps work, too..  

exercise..

Today I am thankful, so very thankful for EXERCISE!

Being an exercise major, I guess you would expect me to say this, but really, exercise brings me some heavy-duty joy whether or not I'm studying this in school - and even on the days that I'd rather do anything else over exercising, I'm thankful for it because I know in the long run its keeping me healthy and in good shape. Exercise keeps me happy, confident and active, I don't see a thing wrong with this (: 

Professional Potty-Dancer

Its pretty sad when the thought of blogging about drinking water is more exciting than your homework. But you know what? The thought of blogging about drinking water IS more exciting than my homework. Much more exciting. So I decided to make that thought a reality...here I am. Blogging about drinking water. {i'll be a nerd later..}

It is recommended that you drink eight 8 ounce glasses of water a day. For those of you, like me, who hate math, allow me to be terribly kind and do the math for you. That equals 64 ounces of water a day. 

I was evaluating my health the other day and made a few personal goals regarding how I can become healthier. One of them was to start drinking the recommended amount of water. {and maybe lay off downing Diet Coke like theres no tomorrow}

Um.

Did you know drinking 64 ounces of water a day feels like you're slowly drowning yourself throughout the day?

yes, i have an epic batman blankie

Holy cow.

Actually...

Imma toot my own horn here real quick. I've been averaging about 96-128 ounces of water a day.

Maybe I am drowning myself?

Now comes the "rant."

Drinking water is great! So healthy! It keeps your skin clear, helps you maintain/lose weight in a healthy manner, it flushes toxins from your body, keeps you hydrated, gives you more energy, I think I've heard it helps your brain work better?...You know...good stuff.

But want to know the heavy-duty downside?

You have to go to the bathroom allllllllllllllllll the time!! 

All. The. Time.

I do the potty-dance 24/7. I even find myself waking up in the few hours that I manage to sleep because my bladder was so full.

Ah, the perks to being a healthy person...along with the "perks" those kettlebells brought me...SO, SO sore. My arms and shoulders don't work, in case you wondered. (but that is a different post)

Okay. Thats it.

I have to sprint to the bathroom, now...(been doin' the potty-dance through this whole post)

Drink your water and be healthy, loves.
Buh-bye.

yowza

Kettlebells

My new love/worst enemy.

To be brief, I have never felt so sore after a work out.

BUT sore=good.

And that is all.

my serenity

I enjoy exercise. 

But if there are two forms of exercise I truly, truly love, they are running and yoga. 

You know those people who say that exercise makes them feel happy? I am one of those people. 

Running has been a hobby of mine for quite a few years, now. I admit, in the past, running and I have had a bit of a love-hate relationship. You know, sometimes running is exhausting and hurts and makes me feel old (and i'm only 20). Sometimes it is too cold and running in that weather hurts my ears. Sometimes its really hot outside and the heat seems to drain every ounce of energy out of my body. I have a bad hip and sometimes running really bugs it. BUT despite all that, the feeling after you've finished a good, long run is fabulous. I crave that feeling almost daily. The very best is when you're actually running and you feel so good. Endorphins are yummy.

Running is such therapy for me. Especially when life is throwing me a lot of lemons, I find that running puts my head back on straight and helps me see and think clearer. Running is a blessing.

My newest exercise addiction is YOGA! Holy guacamole, I am madly, head-over-heels, crazy in-love with blessed, beautiful yoga. I will even go as far to say that I love yoga more than running. I. Love. Yoga. I've been doing yoga for several months now, but already I'm feeling/seeing benefits from my practices. I like to be open minded about different, foreign forms of exercise but yoga was always one I was a little iffy about. I had the stereotypical mind and thought yoga was a bunch of sitting like Yoda and humming with my hands in a funny position on my knees. I was sure that yoga wasn't at all a work out. Then I tried yoga and learned BOY was I wrong. Yes, yoga is hard. It puts you into positions you swear you could never get into, but with practice, honor and a good attitude, you'll get that position sooner than you'd ever imagine! (something i've learned from experience). Yoga is most definitely a workout! Not only a physical work out but also a mental and spiritual workout. There is something about beautiful yoga that works your whole entire body and soul in a magnificent way and after your practice, you feel like a million bucks that is forming into a beautiful, toned, sane individual. Why wouldn't you want that?
Yoga, too, calms me down and settles my heart. The yoga class I take is late at night and is in the dark with the heat on full blast. It doesn't sound fun, I know, but it is, don't worry. My instructor, Jen, is the most beautiful, uplifting person, I'm sure she is half the reason I adore yoga so much. I'm thankful for the outlook on yoga that she has given me. Yoga is a blessing.

Now that Spring/Summer is finally here/on its way, this means hiking season is coming and I also love hiking! I'm anxious to begin cycling as another form of exercise, too, and see how I like that. Then, of course, there is also the gym...I'm still learning to love "lifting," but this exercise, like the rest of them, leaves me feeling good, refreshed and accomplished. Exercise is a blessing.

I'm so excited to one day be a person who can help other people appreciate exercise and find the good in it rather than the bad. I'm anxious to help people be open-minded about being in shape and being physically active. I believe that exercise really is a blessing and a gift that I hope everyone, one day, can appreciate and take part in!