Where Have You Been?

So, wow. It's been quite a while....not that I haven't had anything to say, but I just haven't had the motivation I guess. I'm ready to start making this a regular thing again, but it would seem weird to just leave out what's happened for the last few months, so here's a synopsis....

Gene got to come home from his deployment in Spain a few months early.  He was home in time for Thanksgiving, and even though I was sad that my plans to visit Spain to see him in November fell through, it's far better having him come home. 

We had our first "real" Christmas since....well, since we've been together.  There have always been some circumstances that made our Christmases weird (deployment, just moving to the UK and having no stuff, etc....), so it was nice to do the whole thing properly - decorated tree, stockings, nice dinner, etc.... We actually had a party on Christmas Eve, and it was (for lack of a better word) interesting. I enjoy it when people are here, but I don't think we will do another party ON Christmas Eve again.  It just got really stressful for me, but perhaps that is because I was the only completely sober person there.  NOTE TO SELF: when people are at your house, get hammered so you don't care about where they throw up/broken glasses/stains on the wall/etc......

Sometime around Thanksgiving, my dad went to see his ENT guy about a really bad sore throat, and long story short, he ended up having throat cancer. Shortly after the new year, he began 7 weeks of 5 days a week radiation treatment.  I flew home in February for the last two weeks of his treatment as a surprise, and to try to help lift his spirits, and I think being there for him (and for mom) did some good, and it also did a lot of good for me, since the guilt of being so far away from him while he was going through treatment was really weighing on me.  He is doing much better now (finally able to eat solid foods, and get off of his ensure-only diet), and just yesterday got a very positive check-up from his doctor.  I have a lot of easily stirred emotions about the diagnosis, the treatment, and what it will mean for the rest of his life (I think I will forever be holding my breath each time he walks in for a checkup, just praying that he gets the all clear again...).  I know that now he is all right, and I find great comfort in that, and while I could probably write a very long entry about it (and I've tried in my  head quite a few times), I don't find it to be necessary right now. When I can think about it without tears welling up in my eyes, maybe I'll lay it all out.....or maybe I never will.


In January, Gene and I took a pretty nice long weekend trip to Vienna.  If you haven't been there, and get a chance to go, definitely take it.  Honestly, we saw pretty much all there was to see in the first day, but truthfully, I enjoyed the food on that trip more than anything.  We stayed in one of the fabulous apartments at  Stanys Das Apartmenthotel, and it was not only cozy, but quite affordable, and a short walk to train stations and pretty close to lots of fabulous places to eat/see.  I was disappointed that we didn't get snow while we were there, but it was definitely COLD. I didn't mind the low temperatures at all, because it meant busting out my new, very cute snow boots, and the cool faux fur lined coat mom gave me last year. It was a beautiful city to just walk around in. Every building was gorgeous, and it seemed like there was something interesting to look at at every turn.  I was totally bummed when we had to come home, but definitely look forward to going back.


Work has been good. Nothing all that "eventful" going on lately - nothing that is my business to discuss anyway.  Still really love working there and the people I work with. I've been there for a year now, and I'm thankful for it every day.

We've been working out a lot more lately - we TRY to go 5 days a week, but it usually ends up being more like 4, and usually it's my fault.  We only got to go one day this week because I really sort of had a bad week - Monday, I was throwing up and then on Wednesday, I walked into the dental office on base with my only intention being to SCHEDULE a follow up appointment from my dental fiasco back in October (because I STILL couldn't chew), and ended up in the triage room for what was supposed to be a "20 or 30 minute appointment," but resulted in me ending up in the dental office for nearly 4 hours having an unexpected root canal done.  FUN. Dr. Model Guy didn't do it, and I was sort of relieved. He was so horrified at the idea of causing me pain that I didn't want him to think the position I was in was somehow HIS fault (although, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it kind of WAS his fault....I told him in October that I needed a root canal, but alas, he didn't listen).  Anyway, the last few days have sort of sucked because I'm dealing with the pain that obviously comes with a root canal, and the only thing they will give me for pain on base is MOTRIN.  All I can say is that I'm glade I live in England where codeine is sold over the counter.

We don't have any plans for the weekend really - I need to do some serious spring cleaning upstairs, and I'm looking forward to sleeping late, but that's about all that is on my agenda. 

so that's what's been going on for the last few months, in a nutshell.....I promise I'll be better about keeping up with this.....

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, y'all!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Toothaches - Part 2

It's been exactly a week since my return trip to the dentist to have whatever the hell was wrong with my tooth fixed.  I got up (literally) before the sun came up, anticipating mega amounts of morning commuter traffic, and nervous that I wouldn't make it to my 7:00 a.m. (!!!!!) appointment on time.

I still haven't figured out how I'm ALWAYS the person who gets the 7:00 a.m. schedule slot. never once, since being at this base and since this whole dental fiasco began, have I had a nice, mid-morning  appointment (who ARE the lucky bastards that get to saunter in at 10:30, all well rested and with brushed hair?) or an afternoon appointment (dare to dream, chuck. dare. to. dream.)

anyway, I rolled into the parking lot at 6:58, giving me just enough time to shuffle (and I was so exhausted that I was, in fact, shuffling) to the front desk to check in.  I suddenly realized that I was about to have drills and hands and god knows what else in my mouth, and my heart started racing and I got all anxious, but that's pretty par for the course for me, so I just tried calming myself down.

the (way-too-excited for 7:00 a.m.) technician came out, called my name (this time he called me "Carla," as opposed to the "Mrs. English" that I've started to expect, and yes, I realize that Carla isn't my name, but if the last 29 years has taught me anything, it's that if it starts with a "C" sound and ends with any of the sounds that the letter "A" can possibly make, they are probably calling MY name....(sidenote: one of the (very small) reasons I was so stoked to get married was that people would FINALLY be able to pronounce my last name - it was so exciting to think "well, at least they can only screw up HALF my name now!" - I had a teacher once that insisted on repeatedly calling me "Carla Crawley," and my classmates never understood why I didn't just correct her. I tried to explain to them that by that point in my life, I was so used to people butchering my name that I just didn't care anymore....also, I don't know why people insist on treating the "H" in my first name as if it were silent...it is NOT silent, y'all!...make that "H" sound loud and proud....but I digress....)....so anyway, I drag myself out of the chair and follow him back to a treatment room where I climb into the big dentists chair and start to get all anxious and nervous again.  Dr. Model Guy enters not too long after I get settled - we exchange pleasantries, and I go on to tell him that the pain is progressively getting worse, and I try to make jokes that he doesn't laugh at because either (a) he doesn't get them, or (b) I'm not nearly as funny as I think I am.  We discuss a plan of attack ("first we'll remove the filling and replace it, give it two weeks, and if that doesn't help, we will do a root canal"), and he shoves one of those q-tips with some gnarly tasting gel into the right side of my mouth between my cheek and my bottom teeth - I make a face at the disgustingness of the taste in my mouth and  he looks at me, obviously understanding the meaning of my scrunched up nose and attempt at a frown (it's totally hard to frown with a  giant q-tip shoved in your mouth) - "it's watermelon flavored!" he says, all happy and smiley..... I reach up, remove the giant q-tip, and say "whoever told you that has obviously never HAD watermelon. Also, I'm not sure what your chart says, and I know I've got pretty decent skin, but I'm not 4, so lying to me and telling me something is fruit flavored doesn't make it any less disgusting" - he looks like he's going to laugh, but instead just shoves the q-tip back in my mouth and tells me to close my mouth and hold it there.  so I do.

I sat there for a good 3 or 4 minutes listening to the discussion between the Tech and Dr. Model Guy.  they talked about baseball.  They talked about basketball.  They talked about what they did over the weekend.  I start to calm down and almost fall asleep in the chair. I eventually feel a hand pass over my face, and the gigantic q-tip comes out of my mouth. I realize what is next, and I brace for it - the big metal syringe....

I'm not scared of needles at all.  My tattoos, various piercings over the years, and my profession are all a testament to that.  You want to take a blood sample? awesome! no problem! What's that?  I need a vaccination? I'm totally fine with that!  But there is something about those large metal syringes that scares that shit out of me. they are like something out of a horror movie - like some kind of torture device - and the thought of having these long, cold needles shoved into parts of my mouth....ugh. It's by far one of the most unpleasant things I can think of doing, but obviously when you're having dental work done, it's absolutely necessary - when it works, that is.

I got the first injection, then a second one immediately after.  This was followed by a considerable amount of waiting time, and every few minutes one of them would ask me if my face/tongue/lip was numb yet.  I felt bad because I kept having to tell them no, and also hated telling them that because I knew it meant more injections, more waiting and more questions......we repeated the cycle 3 times, and,  to be honest, my lip and tongue never got numb beyond a slight tingle - all told there were 7 injections put into my mouth, and not much progress in the way of numbness -  but he figured that my tooth itself must be numb, so the work began.


I was definitely scared the minute he turned on the drill because something inside me knew that I was about to be in quite a bit of discomfort.  yes, my tooth was pretty numb, but I realized almost immediately that I could still feel cold, and when you're dealing with the kind of sensitivity I was, that kind of shooting cold is almost too much to deal with.  Just like at my last visit, they had told me that if I felt any pain or discomfort, to raise my hand - and raise my hand I did.....

The first little jolt of pain went through me, and my whole body started shaking. My hand went up and the tech put his hand on my shoulder and said "can you feel THAT?" and, because I had a mouth full of stuff at that point and couldn't really talk, I shook my head yes and tried to say "COLD" as clearly as I could - they backed off for a few minutes hoping that the injections would kick in, and they started up again - another jolt of cold ran through me, and again,  I started shaking and had tears coming down my cheeks.  My hand popped up. He stopped again, asked if I was still feeling it, and I shook my head "yes" - this pattern repeated a few times, and I could tell that he was becoming frustrated (as was I) and was also concerned that he was hurting me.  I'd gotten to the point where I knew the filling was halfway out (because he said, in a tone that was both relieved AND frustrated  "okay, we're halfway out" - which, by the way, took probably 3 times as long as it should have!)  and there was no turning back, so the last time he stopped to give me a break, I looked up at him, and as clearly as I could with the plethora of crap in my mouth said "JUST GO" - and he did....

I spent the next few minutes trying to focus on anything else but the constant pain in my mouth.  I tried paying attention to the music that was playing on the Tech's iPod (Selena's "I Could Fall In Love With You" followed by some hip hop crap I didn't recognize, followed by something that sounded like a mariachi band with a ska horn section....), but that just seemed to make it worse (I think it was at this point that I thought to myself "THIS is what Hell HAS to be like!")...then I tried to "go to my happy place," but I ended up having such a hard time trying to even figure out where the Hell my happy place IS that it was totally pointless.  I tried thinking about things I needed from the store/things I wanted to buy/my to-do lists, but the pain just kept taking over my brain.  It was so hard to focus on anything else besides what I was feeling, so eventually I just totally gave myself over to it.  I realized at some point how ridiculous I looked - I had instinctively tucked my feet up towards my chest and was clutching the arm rests on the chair as hard as I could.  My arms and legs were shaking, and I kept automatically trying to snap my mouth shut every time I felt a stab of pain (fortunately, they had shoved one of those rubber bite stopper things in the other side of my mouth after I'd had the first couple of minutes of clamping my jaw shut, rendering me unable to do it anymore), so the left side of my jaw had become sore just from me grinding on the rubber bite stopper. In that last bit of getting the filling out, It seemed like an hour went by, but in reality, I'm sure it was just a matter of 5 minutes or so....probably less....it's amazing how discomfort can make time drag on.

When he finished getting the filling out, he quickly replaced it, and I spent the rest of the appointment half dazed with soreness all over my body. I wanted to curl up in a ball and cry, and all I could think about was getting home and doing just that.  When he was finally done, he apologized that the injections didn't work completely, but that they must have worked at least somewhat on the tooth itself, or there is no way I could have suffered through that.  He was probably right, but at the time I couldn't imagine any feeling worse than what I'd just been through.  I explained to him that I'd never had ANY trouble - in my entire life - with the Lidocaine (or whatever agent was used at the time) injections making me numb, and that they usually work VERY quickly, and most of the time take ages to wear off - he said he didn't know what had happened that day, and explained that sometimes people just get so nervous and worked up that the injections just don't work until they get home and relax - He told me that there is one patient there who has needed work done for months, but every time he comes in, they spend the entire appointment waiting on his tooth/lip/tongue to go numb, and it never does, but once the guy gets home, he's numb for hours....It's believable that this would happen, but honestly at that point (and considering I'd never had this problem before), I called his bluff and just figured he kept missing the proper injection sites (cause the mouth is a tricky, tricky thing), and just considered myself lucky that my tooth was at least a little bit numb...."I KNEW he was too good looking to be smart enough to be a dentist!" I thought to myself....

I asked if he thought I would be in pain for the next day or two, and he said "Yes." - I asked what he suggested for the pain (I admit that I was kind of hoping for something that required a trip to the pharmacy) and he stuck with the old tried-and-true military go-to recommendation for EVERYTHING: Ibuprofen. I thanked him, told him I'd call if the problems persisted to schedule another visit, and headed home.

And wouldn't you know it? about 10 minutes into my drive, the entire right side of my face went numb.

toothaches

    As some of you (and by "some" I mean the two people who actually read this with any regularity) might remember, I mentioned previously that I'd been to the dentist and was having some discomfort after my visit.  I kind of hoped it would go away, but by the beginning of this week, I sort of abandoned that hope.  I can't chew even the softest foods on the right side of my mouth without wanting to punch something or screaming obscenities, and  I realized that I probably needed to let my dentist know what was going on so that he could fix it.  I ended up in "dental triage" on Wednesday morning,  which is the Air Force's fancy way of saying "Hey, what's that? something is wrong with your teeth? Well, come on in and we'll let you talk to a dentist who isn't your regular dentist, and who has no idea what was just done in your mouth, and they will just do a quick assessment and then schedule you an appointment for 2 weeks from now to actually FIX the problem....OH? what did you say? you're in PAIN? okay....take some ibuprofen, cause that's ALL we can recommend to you on an "official" basis! Have a good one!"

    So I'm sitting in the waiting room, and this guy who probably put himself through college by modeling  suits for Ralph Lauren comes out and calls my name (he called me "Mrs. English, which I still find weird, and I realize that I should respond to that by saying "oh, PLEASE call me Charlee," but I'm always too frazzled from being called "Mrs. English" to even say anything).  I look at him for a second, and at first I assumed that he must be an assistant (not because he was good looking, but because he looked incredibly young). After I followed him into the exam room (which was a short walk, but seemed like it took forever because he didn't really laugh at any of my jokes) and climbed into the chair, I noticed that his name tag did, in fact, state that he was a dentist, and the fact that he was ridiculously good looking not only made me self conscious (my appointment was at 7 a.m., so even though I'd jumped in the shower and cleaned myself up a bit before going, I fully intended on going straight back to bed once I got home so I was literally in pajamas with my hair on top of my head in the most obscene pony tail ever, and I had no makeup on at all), but also made me want to go all stereotypical on him and ask to see his dentistry degree because, ya know, nobody THAT good looking could be smart enough to be a dentist.....

    Anyway, he did a bunch of tests to see if there were issues with my new filling, took some x-rays (which all looked pretty normal), and then did some tests to check my pain level.  Apparently pain and cold share a nerve (I'm sure there's a more medically correct way to say that, but I'm too lazy to care), so there was a bit of tapping on my teeth (which was unpleasant), but then he did the cold test...basically, they put a q-tip that's been sprayed with canned air that makes it like, 50 degrees below zero (okay, I don't know exactly how many degrees below zero, because when he was telling me what the exact temperature was, I was busy curling my hands into the tightest fists EVER, and wishing for death), and he presses it against your tooth to check for sensitivity/pain.  This is when Dr. Model Guy almost got a close-fisted, high-five to his very handsome face.  I was told to "raise your hand when the pain starts and don't put it down until it stops" but I kept having to drop my hand in order to grip the arm rests on the chair so that I didn't start instinctively start slapping at him like a crazy person.  It was, by far, one of the most unpleasant things I've ever experienced, and I seriously shudder every time I see a cotton tipped applicator now.  Anyway, I have to assume that my reaction to the cold test means bad news, so I'm preparing for the worst. On top of that, the pain when chewing has gotten worse (I don't know WHY I insist on continuing to try to chew on my right side...I guess I'm hoping it will magically go away).  I have an appointment to see Dr. Model Guy in 2 weeks (my regular dentist will be out of the country, so obviously will be unable to do it, and there aren't any available appointments before then) to redo the filling (the one that was JUST redone), and if that doesn't help the situation, I supposed I'll be getting a friggin' root canal. OH JOY.

   I will say this about the dentists on base:  aside from all being ridiculously good looking (seriously. they are ALL very attractive. They used to have a Tyra Banks look alike.), they are all incredibly nice, and are all as helpful as they can be (the scheduling issue isn't their fault) - I've always been really scared of dentists, but they all seem really good at making you feel at ease, and that means a lot to someone like me who is terrified of the dentist, especially when you consider that once this fiasco is over, I will have been to the dentist 7 times in the last 3.5 months. YIKES.


SIDE NOTE:  I guess that mother nature heard/read my bitching, because the last couple of days have been pretty freaking cold.  I'm a fan of cold weather (you just can't beat winter clothes, in my opinion), but I'm used to it gradually going from warm to cold (and what I mean by that, is that I'm used to experience a season we refer to back home as "fall"), rather than it being scorching hot one day, and then bonafide tight/sweater/fuzzy hat weather the next.  I don't know if this is the "norm" here since when I arrived last year, they were already well into winter. Whatever...at least it's not miserably hot anymore....mittens and hat weather, here we come! woo!

deployment: round 2, part 2

The weather here has been crazy. The mornings are insanely chilly, and then by noon, it's scorching hot outside (or as scorching hot as it gets here in the UK, anyway! nothing compared to the weather back home right now, I'm sure).  The evenings are warm, but bearable, but because of all the heat that usually builds up in the house during the day (and because the british don't believe in air conditioning), I sleep with nearly all the windows open upstairs. The last few nights when I get into bed, I have the covers completely kicked off (otherwise I break into a sweat), and instead of my usual t-shirt, I'm in a tank top because it's just so damn hot.   It never fails that  sometime in the middle of the night, I wake up freezing, so much so that my teeth are chattering, and I jump out of bed, shut all of the windows and pile on another layer or two of clothing before I jump back into bed and pull the covers completely over my head to try to keep as much warmth in as possible.  It's been a ridiculous cycle that has been repeating all week, and while I enjoy the sunshine and the lack of rain, I'm at the point where I wish the weather would just make a choice.  Is it fall? Is it summer? You can't have it both ways, mother nature! CHOOSE, BITCH!

This morning when I woke up freezing, I instinctually rolled over to face Gene's side of the bed, fully expecting a warm body to be there to cuddle up with, and when he wasn't there, my brain initially thought "what is he doing up already?" - It took probably a full minute before I remembered that he was gone and won't be back for another 5 1/2 months. This happens pretty frequently when I'm half asleep. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night thinking he's just downstairs or that he hasn't made it home from work yet.  It's bizarre, but sometimes it's a little bit comforting.  

He's been gone for a full two weeks, but it seems like he's been gone for months.  On the scale of how people deal with deployment ("great" being the best and "sniveling, codependent mess" being the worst) I think I fall nearer to the "great" side, but I have my moments. I do great during the day when I'm busy or at work, but then I come home and it's quiet (aside from the sounds of the dogs going nuts, running laps around the house) and I do get a little sad.  I get to talk to him pretty much every night (on google messenger), but I've only talked to him once on the phone since he left. I don't feel much like cooking because the thought of wasting such a significant amount of food (since everything I cook is only appropriate for multiple people, and I'm not really the best at eating leftovers) doesn't appeal to me, so my diet for the last two weeks (aside from the few meals I've had out) consists mainly of cereal, toasts, sandwiches, salads, eggs, and tomatoes - LOTS of tomatoes. I do imagine that soon I'll tire of this, so I've found a couple of books full of recipes for one person that I'm going to order. Obviously  because I'm only one person and I'm not cooking much, it means less dirty dishes to clean - I was amazed when I loaded my dishwasher for the first time in an entire week yesterday. I usually have to do a load every day....I spend a lot of time watching t.v. or sitting in front of the computer, and I spend an obscene amount of time cleaning.  Gene always made fun of me for dusting things, and now it's just become an obsession. If I'm bored, I'll get the duster out and just dust anything and everything that may or may not need dusting.....I guess that's a bright side of the deployment....

5 months, 2 weeks to go, y'all!

Oh,  by the way - if any of you use Pinterest (my new addiction!), and you like ME, click HERE to follow my boards! 

the week: a recap

The last week has been a little more eventful and busy than usual.....in good AND bad ways

Monday was okay.  The day started out normally, and seemed pretty typical and uneventful.  I went to work, and we weren't too terribly busy, but we also had to pack for the remote clinic we were doing this week, so that added a bit of work, and then I had to leave around 3 and haul ass to Lakenheath to get my orders for the remote clinic, and to get my advance done.

I came home and packed my stuff for the next few days, and went to bed a bit earlier than normal.  I woke up around 2 that morning to go to the bathroom, and my face felt really itchy and tight, but I was too tired to be too concerned about it,  but on my way back to bed, I just happened to look at myself in the mirror
and noticed that the left side of my face (and most of my top lip) was very swollen - it was like I was having an allergic reaction to something, but I can't for the life of me figure out what that might have been.  I didn't eat anything strange and I immediately searched myself for bug bites of any kind, and I found nothing. I didn't feel particularly bad, and I didn't really think I was in enough danger to warrant a trip to the emergency room, so I just took a very large amount of benadryl and went to bed.  By the time I woke up 5 1/2 hours later, the swelling of my face and lip had gone down significantly, but the very left corner of my upper lip was still a bit swollen - it looked like collagen filler gone terribly wrong - like I'd let a doctor inject me in one spot and then chickened out and run screaming, like a crazy person,  out of his office with a partially inflated lip.  I couldn't take anymore benadryl at that point because I was about to leave to head to work and then was going to be in a car for 3 1/2 hours on the way to the remote, and I didn't want to be a drowsy mess, so I decided to just tough it out and hope the rest of the swelling would go down on it's own.

I got to work and we loaded up the car and headed out.  We got to Harrogate (which is about a 20 minute drive from the base where we were doing our clinic),  and checked into our hotel (a little bed and breakfast called The Camberley, which I highly recommend - the place is adorable, in a great location and the owners are fabulous), and then one of my coworkers and I went for a ride at Bewerley Riding Centre. It was nice to just ride through the countryside and see all the beautiful farm land and all the fun sheep and cows and whatnot (we even saw some alpacas!), but the saddles they used at this place were "floating" saddles, so it required a lot more work to just stay balanced and steady on top of the horse, so as enjoyable as the ride was, it also resulted in my legs being ridiculously sore the minute I got off of the horse (a very lovely guy named Murphy, for the record).  After that we headed back to The Camberley, got showered and changed and headed out to dinner.  When we sat down to eat we almost all seemed ready to go catch a movie afterwards, but by the time dinner was over, We were all so exhausted that we just decided to call it a night.  I climbed in my bed, took some benadryl (at this point, the swelling was almost totally gone!), and sacked out pretty early.

The next day was the first day of clinic. we got there, set up, and everything went okay.  We were extremely busy, so there were moments that stuff got a little hectic and backed up, but we had enough hands to keep everything from getting crazy. after clinic, we changed our clothes and headed out to do a little sightseeing.  we checked out some ruins of an old castle, and I got a lesson from the others on geocaching, which I'm still on the fence about (can't decide if I think it's interesting or completely ridiculous...) it didn't help that it started pouring down rain while we were geocaching, which made my shoes soggy and my mood grumpy......

for dinner that night we ended up at Betty's, which is a seriously incredible cafe/tea room in Harrogate. I've grown to really love tea rooms since I've been living here, and all the delicious food associated with afternoon tea, and some of the girls from work frequent a tea room in nearby Mildenhall called  Emily's, that I've now become obsessed with, so pretty much any time anyone wants to go to a tea room, I'm up for it, so I was glad that we chose Betty's. Apparently it's pretty famous (there are other Betty's across the UK as well), and there is usually a queue just to get in, but we lucked out (probably because of the torrential downpour that was happening) and walked right in and got a table immediately.  All three of us ordered the Betty's Pink Champagne Afternoon Tea which looks like this:

it included a variety of sandwiches, a sultana scone (my favorite!) with clotted cream and preserves, a selection of mini cakes, house blend tea and, of course, a glass of pink champagne.  every bit of it was delicious, and after trudging through the rain, the tea (and champagne!) was much needed! it's definitely one of my favorite meals so far in the UK, and I can't wait until I have an excuse to go back!

After dinner we all turned in early again.  The next day we got up, headed back out to clinic and zipped through our appointments. We were on the road headed home by noon, and we made it back to Feltwell around 3:00-ish.  I was exhausted and glad to be home, and after I got home and got settled, I just stayed camped out on the couch until I couldn't really hold my eyes open anymore, and then I headed to bed.

Today I had a dentist appointment, and while I have a pretty serious fear of going to the dentist (even for the simplest things), I actually really like my dentist here - he's very funny and has great taste in music, and whenever I go in, we always end up talking about bands or shows we've been to or want to go to, so he really puts me at ease - and the last time I was there, the pain afterward was very minimal, and I was having a similar thing done today, so I figured it would be just like last time.  The first thing they did when I got there was take some impressions for a bite guard I need to wear when I sleep (apparently I've started grinding my teeth at night), and this made me very anxious because in the past, having impressions done were some of the most uncomfortable and anxious moments for me at the dentist - I can handle the sound of the drill and the clinking and clanking of stuff inside my mouth, but something about someone shoving giant trays of overflowing goo into my mouth and forcing me to breath through my nose while trying to control my gag reflex is just really anxiety inducing for me....apparently every other dentist I've ever had has been doing impression incorrectly this whole time because today (once I finally calmed down enough to let them put the trays in my mouth) they weren't all that uncomfortable or even gag worthy...apparently he has a "method" to make it more bearable....once we finally got THAT over with and I spent a good 10 minutes wiping excess mold stuff off of my face, he got down to business, and about 45 minutes later, I was headed out the door.  My right cheek and the right side of my chin were completely numb, as was the right side of my tongue, but I had a few errands I needed to run, and despite feeling self conscious about the fact that I could barely speak and that I had the potential to unknowingly have drool dripping down my face at any time,  I bit the bullet and went about my business.  I only got a few weird looks (one from the girl at the bank when I accidentally "slurped" when I was trying to talk to her - after which I said "SHORRY. I'VE JUSHT COME FROM THE DENTISHTH"), and kept my attempts at talking to a minimum.  I came home and had a numb face for a few more hours.  I kept wishing that the feeling would come back into my face so that I could eat and drink something (and actually taste it normally), but once it did, I prayed for the numbness to return. It hurts like HELL right now on the right side of my mouth.  I don't know why I'm having so much more pain this time - I'm not sure if it's because of the location, or maybe this is just my week to be a sissy? I don't know...all I can tell you is that it feels like there are a dozen teeny tiny angry villagers stabbing the inside of my mouth with teeny, tiny little spears. I've taken some Ibuprofen, and I'm hoping it will kick in soon, or at least that I can go to sleep and stay that way until the pain isn't so bad.

I've also started keeping an actual paper journal again, not so much for myself as it is for my hypothetical grandchildren who may need some helpful info to do some school project one day....but seriously, I have always enjoyed reading the letters my grandparents and great grandparents wrote when they were younger, and I figure I owe it to anyone who might care someday to leave behind something a little more tangible than an online blog....from the couple of entries I've written in it, I've realized why I've put off doing it for so long: because writing things by hand HURTS.  I definitely prefer typing to writing, but I'm going to keep at it....carpal tunnel be damned!

The weekend should be pretty uneventful (or at least I hope it is...I need a couple of days to just do absolutely nothing). I plan to do a lot of sleeping and hanging with the dogs. and hopefully NOT a lot of bitching and moaning about how much my teeth hurt....

the sweetest things....

I've had a fairly rough couple of weeks (the medical crap, Gene's deployment, etc...), and I'll be the first to admit that I have had moments recently when I definitely could have used some cheering up, and today I woke up to a little box of instant cheer waiting for me by the door from my blogger pal, Jaime (if you haven't read her blog, angloyankophile, you should!)!!!

If there's anything I like, it's something sweet! and if I had to choose a favorite sweet thing, it would be a cupcake (obvious to anyone who knows me....I totally worship all things cupcake!) - the next best thing (and one that, in my opinion, far surpasses most cupcakes in the cuteness category!) would be these sweet little cupcake shaped iced biscuits from Biscuiteers ....

first of all, even the freaking BOX and the packing inside is adorable. 

and then, there they were - some of the most adorable things I've ever seen! I actually said "AWWWWW" out loud, to myself, when I saw them! They are so cute that I don't want to eat them, but so delicious looking that I don't think I can resist it! 

This was definitely the little boost I needed today to start me off in a good mood.  Thanks so much for the little pick-me-up, Jaime!!!!