twenty-three

This has been a great birthday week!

I have found myself thinking of my birthday last year, and this year has definitely been a step up! If you've known me for a while, or have been reading this blog a while, then you might remember my hospital stay last year on the week of my birthday. I was there for epilepsy monitoring, to see if I really had epilepsy or not. Fortunately, the results revealed I did not have epilepsy, but it began a new part of our journey to find out what was causing my seizures.

Not sure if we're too much closer to figuring everything out, but at least I'm not back there.

So for my 23rd birthday, I decided this is going to be a new year, full of new and exciting things! I wasn't really planning making a sweeping declaration like that, but I've been making some decisions lately, and it just seemed like where my life was supposed to be this year. I'm excited!

I think a lot of you have already seen it, but Randy & I have put together a bucket list of things we want to do together and put it in the tabs above! ^^^
We'll cross things off as we do them, but I'll also try to write a post when we complete something from the list.

Allison and I are also starting our yoga classes again! Once I was diagnosed with the increased intracranial pressure and started taking the medication that dehydrated my body like crazy (Diamox), I took a break from yoga because I wasn't sure how my body would handle sweating so much. Also, the pain/pressure feeling in my head has gotten better lately, so I feel like it's something I can handle now. I'm really excited about it! My body feels so good when I practice yoga, and I have definitely missed it!

It will also give me a chance to use the AWESOME water bottle my parents got me for Christmas. It was created for hot yoga, but it can be used however you want. It keeps liquids hot OR cold for HOURS, it holds 40oz of water, it's surprisingly light if you hold it from the loop at the top, and you can buy different caps for it that do different things. The one shown in the picture is more of a typical "canteen" lid, but I love the straw lid. It's so much better than a camelbak, and I used to LOVE my camelbak! The camelbak straw lids get kind of grimey, though, and you can only put water in those. You can use a hydroflask for anything, hot or cold. I'll probably only use it for water, but it's kind of nice to have the option...never know if I'll be on a road trip or something and need 40oz of coffee! OH, and it has a coating on it that keeps it from sweating. That's why it's so great for hot yoga!

So our first class back is tomorrow! (technically today - Wednesday)

I'll let you know how badly it kills me later :)

I also feel like I made a huge step in the direction of being a real live grown up woman. I learned to curl my hair! Well, sort of...I'm counting it, anyway. My parents sent me a surprise gift card to amazon (man, they are just killing it with these presents!) and I got a curling wand I heard about from Randy & I's niece, Grace :) I had been wanting a curling wand because I am absolutely hopeless with a curling iron, and I overheard her telling my lovely sister-in-law, Wendy, about how this one was better because the "bubbles" made your hair stay on the wand better. The reviews on amazon  had people basically saying it was perfect for people who had no idea what they were doing...ME! They also said it was pretty much impossible to mess up, which was also something I really needed. Well, I don't know about all that, but after trying it out once for a few minutes the day I got it, I was able to fully curl all of my hair in about 25 minutes! So if you want to curl your hair and you have no idea what you're doing, GET ONE OF THESE! They're $30, free shipping, and the curls stay ALL DAY with no product. Seriously. I even slept on the ones I tested out the other day, then wore my hair in a pony tail the next day and it had gorgeous, perfect curls in it still. I love this little thing.

This year I had to work on my birthday, but it was okay because they decorated my cozy cube and I got a fun company picnic chair as a present. For dinner, Randy took me to Macaroni Grill! That used to be the restaurant I went to every year for my birthday, but a few years ago we had kind of a bad experience and haven't been back. We had a gift card, so we decided to try it again...wompwomp. I don't know if they got new management, or what, but the quality is not what it used to be. It was good, but not the same good. Make sense? Oh well. I guess it's time to just let that tradition officially die and let it go. I'm so bad at that!

Sweet Randy gave me another amazon giftcard so I could get more books and things on my wishlist. He said this year he just felt like he should let me choose what I wanted, and I love that. That man gets me. Not that he's a bad gifter, by any means! On the contrary! He always gets me the best presents ever! He's so awesome. He has this awesome talent for always knowing the perfect gift to get me when I need it most. That man loves me well. I am so grateful. 

So they decorated my fun little cozy cube and took me out to one of my favorite Chinese restaurants. It was delicious! I enjoyed it very much! Not a bad birthday for having to spend it at work!

Annnd that's about all for us right now. We're both insanely exhausted and trying to catch up on everything...like sleep...but other than that, we're great :)

Thanks for dropping by!