Yikes!

I'm totally fired.  Has it really been 7 weeks.  I should rent this out to other people to post... just so it stays active :p  Oh gosh, and so much has happened!!

Highlights:

1. Matt finished preparing and gave his speech at a clean energy symposium at Rutgers.

2. I threw a surprise birthday dinner party for Matt's 30th birthday.  40 adults, a handful of kids, and he had no clue.  It was at Dos Perros downtown Durham, and it was a fantastic event.

3. My sweet friend Denise was in town for a wedding and we got to spend some serious quality time together <3

4. At work, we filled our boss's office with balloons.  Over 900 balloons to surprise him on boss' day.  At some point during the day one of my co-workers and I decided to walk around in the balloons.  Once the static started to build and the balloons (that were pressed right up against my face) started popping, I freaked... running towards the exit as balloons kept popping, making me scream each time.  I was crying by the time I got out of there.  Meanwhile, there was an interview going on in the room next door... I'm so classy.  I still have "Rachel - Balloon Wimp - Meitl" written on my cube.  :)

5. Matt and I took our parents (yep, both sets!) on a cruise to the Bahamas.  What a fantastic time; we are truly blessed to have 4 parents that love us so much and get along with each other great!

Hey - I think that's about it.  Do you believe me when I say I'll update next Monday?  Probably not... we'll see... I'm definitely going to try.

What a week... what a month even!

Hey blog-reading friends :]  I'm home on the couch while Matt and a bunch of our friends load everything from Joy's one bedroom apartment in Cary into a 14' UHaul and unload it here in Durham.  (Joy is my sister-in-law for anyone that doesn't know that).  This weekend marks the end of a pretty hectic, stressful month(s).  Summers are always a little busy with weekends being extra packed, but Matt spent much of this summer's free time and weekends preparing for a presentation he gave at Rutgers a little over a week ago.  Getting on the other side of that definitely took a load off of us stress-wise.  His presentation was last Thursday and his 30th birthday was that Saturday, a week ago.  I put together a surprise birthday dinner for him that included over 40 of his favorite people.  Juggling that and keeping it a secret while also supporting him in his presentation prep-work,  and preparing for Joy's move this weekend was just a lot all at once.  Joy has been taking public transportation from Cary to Durham for 4 weeks now.  I know, she's a rockstar, but starting Monday she'll be minutes from us and minutes from work with a car reliable enough to drive herself around town.  Woo hoo!!

So, why am I home while all of my friends eat Bojangles chicken biscuits and load a UHaul on one of the first brisk mornings we've had this season?  Because, since last Sunday, I've been having symptoms that indicate a UTI, and for the past 3 days (today will be the 4th) the truth that I am passing kidney stones has become quite apparent.  So I'm home alone, a bit scared, because the pain is like nothing I've ever experienced or imagined.  It's a dull pain, and I definitely think dull is better than sharp, amen?  But it feels like I'm laying on my stomach and someone is pressing their palm into my right kidney with as much force as possible (actually, it feels like more force than would be humanly possible) and that constant pressure doesn't let up for a couple of hours.  This leaves me laying on my right side stretched out, laying on my left side stretched out, laying on my back and moving my legs like the bicycle motion you might have done regularly as a kid, laying on my back with my knees up swing them open and closed, laying curled over my knees, bent over the countertop, you name it.  Meanwhile I'm literally moaning like I'm in labor.  Unfortunately, for the past 3 mornings this has happened, it has lasted about 2-3 hours, and has involved a couple rounds of vomiting mixed in there.  Really awful stuff.  It wasn't until yesterday (after 3 mornings of this) that we went back to the dr adamant that it was not a bladder infection and that (despite no evidence in my urine and no fever) it had to be kidney stones.  An ultrasound confirmed 1 stone in my bladder and "a couple more small ones" in my right kidney.  Apparently 4 mm is small.  Hopefully this morning will be a little different than the last few, because this morning I'm armed with Tylenol 3 (can't imagine this is going to do much of anything once an episode comes on however) and medicine for the nausea (I think I can handle it if I'm not also fighting the urge to puke in the middle of the pain).  TMI?  Hopefully I haven't just lost half of my blog reading friends with this story...

It's crazy though!  And I'm scared.  I feel way too young to be having kidney stones, right?! But I guess 29 isn't that young.  I've missed almost a full week of work over this, and how can I possibly go back until all of the stones have passed??  There's no way I can be flailing around the office floor moaning for 2 hours.  We do have an onsite nurse though... the school nurse, if you will.  I suppose if this weekend shows that the medicine really does help me handle the "episodes" then I could always go into the office and plan to sit with the school nurse for 2 hours if I have to.  Wee.

Alright, well... I guess I'm going to go pee... wish me luck.  And send up a couple prayers please.  Gratzi!

Woops... I'm still here!!

Yikes I've really let this drop lately.  I let a month go by!  Seems like I haven't done a very good job keeping up with many things these past few weeks.  It's so hard to remember a month ago, but here's five.

1.  Received my notary stamp in the mail - I'm official!

2.  Entering football season with several Hokie co-workers.  Matt and I already have tickets to one home game and one away game.  One co-worker is planning a tail-gate at his house before the VT/Carolina game and my boss writes stats on his dry-erase board!!  I'm lovin it.  :D

3.  Had a few nights in a row of good dreams!  I never have good dreams!

4.  Being called Mrs Meitl at work... and having it sound familiar and not strange like maybe I've just tried on someone else's name for a while.

5.  Melissa and Clayton had their baby girl - Haven Claire Welch.  6lbs5oz.  Itty bitty!  So sweet and so perfect.  I got to spend the day last Monday with Melissa and it's just amazing how terrifying something so small can be.  Every little move she made caused Melissa and me to sit up and see what she was doing.  Just precious.

1.  Reaching 60,000 miles in the first car I bought new off the lot.

2.  Pulling up to a stop light to sense that someone is waving at me from the lane to my right.  Looking over and discovering it's a resident from Lenox, the lovely miss Partlow.  Blowing her kisses in return while both of us grin ear to ear.

3.  Deciding to use some of our savings to take our parents on a cruise - Bahamas in November!

4.  An hour long conversation with Kara - we should schedule those monthly... it's such wonderful therapy :)

5.  Taking maternity pictures of Melissa and Clayton around Durham.  Looking forward to meeting their sweet girl in about 3 weeks!

1.  Our church pairs up engaged couples with married couples to act as mentors.  This past weekend our bible study threw an appreciation dinner party for all of our marriage mentors.  They are so much more than mentors to us, they really are friends.  Towards the end of the night the guys and the girls split up to chat.  The girls sat on the screened porch with a few candles so we could see each other.  Five women who have been married anywhere from 8 to 40 years and five women who are all right around the one year mark.  What a beautiful picture.  We talked about personal things, we talked about challenges, we laughed... a lot, and we received words of wisdom that we all needed to hear.

2.  Back to school shopping!!  One of my co-workers is organizing a school supply drive for an area elementary school with a high rate of under-privileged children.  Matt and I took the list of needed supplies and filled one backpack for a boy and one backpack for a girl.  Who doesn't love a new box of crayons and colored pencils and picking out notebooks with the best looking covers?  The backpacks are loaded and sitting by the front door ready to be delivered.  Hopefully this means one girl and one boy that will not have to worry about standing out for not having the basic school supplies that the other kids have.  Hopefully they can walk in with their backpacks and just focus on learning and making friends, with one less thing standing in their way.

3.  Amazing prayer time at bible study Wednesday night.  It seems like each of the girls has something really major going on right now and it felt really good to delve into to prayer together.  There's something really powerful about calling upon the name of the Lord with a group of women you know and love.  

4.  Bacon wrapped shrimp with basil, bbq sauce, and goat cheese.  Sooooo goooood.

5.  Sampson loves my stuffed animals.  It doesn't work to buy him his own stuffed animal; he wants mine.  He has a tendency to drag them out of the bedroom when no one is looking.  He gets them in the middle of the living room floor, starts kneading them, and meows.  He never does it while we're around though.  We never actually see him grab the stuffed animal and drag it.  One night this week Matt woke up at 4am to Sampson meowing.  He had kibo (my hippo, kiboko, "hippo" in swahili) out in the living room.  He had stolen it from the bed while we slept!  I woke to find that I had Matt's gray t-shirt under my arm instead of my gray hippo, haha!