Let it snow!!!

It has finally snowed here in Utah!!

I love the snow. The world as it is hushed as it falls. The intense feeling of calmness. The feeling that it's finally Christmas time. It's beautiful.

This year I have an interesting challenge with the snow... Riding my bike down the hill into town to work. Not only are the sub-freezing temperatures making my eyes water but by the time I get to work my hands feel like ice blocks. I wear gloves but the cold seeps right through them.

The other thing I've run into when riding into town is the ice on the sidewalks. Logan keeps the sidewalks fairly clear but there are icy patches. There are grooves and frozen footprints that love to reach out and grab the front tire on the bike. I have had a few close calls but so far I haven't fallen to the frozen concrete. Knock on wood.

Let Them Eat Turkey?

Look at that handsome turkey. MMM MMM MMM.


That is cake.

Everything you see is cake except for the lettuce, which is lettuce. My mom is amazing. She put this together in about two days. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to be able to get any because I'm not going home until the end of the week. Oh well, it wouldn't have done my BS any good anyway.

Crazy Sevens

!. My pants usually weigh around two or three pounds. Before I put my pants in the laundry I have to empty my pockets of a plethora of objects. Right now, I have in my pockets, my wallet, my cell phone, Mp3 player and ear buds, a pen, a few Ricola wrappers, a syringe (yes, I'm nuts), a few syringe caps, some dead test strips, my jump drive and dead AA battery. And my pants are rather light at the moment.

@. I'm obsessed with Stargate SG-1. I have watched every single episode of this series about 10 times each. At one point I was a faithful member of the Sony Pictures SG-1 forum. You could probably ask me any question and I could come up with the answer and from which episode it's from.

#. I'm a techno geek of the first class. I love technology. I can fix almost anybody else's computer problems. And if I don't know how to fix something I know where to look to figure out how. Unfortunately, I can't keep my own technology alive. I go through cell phones about every three months. I'll get a phone from my parents that they've had for over a year and within a month it will no longer charge. I'll get a brand new phone and I can guarantee that it will be dead in three months.

$. I'm a music druggie. I can't get enough of it. I have tunes playing at all times and I always have my earbuds in my ears. I love to play in band too. Pep band is my favorite to play in. I think my favorite class in high school was Swing Choir. We danced and sang and did our own choreography.

%. When I was little I used to be obsessed with collecting Lipton Tea bottle lids. I was in pursuit of the loudest 'Clicker'. Which ever cap could pop the loudest was kept on my nightstand while all the rejects were put in my toy chest. I would keep the loudest on my nightstand just in case I needed to make a whole bunch of noise to alert my mom that I was having a bad dream.

^. I'm deathly afraid of falling. I have no problem with flying in an airplane or riding roller coasters but if I'm in the nosebleeds of a stadium I can barely move.

&. I'm 18 and I have never taken driver's ed. Nor do I have a driver's licence. I have driven with my parents and I do believe I have given both a small heart attack. 

Here are the rules for this meme:

• Link to the person’s blog who tagged you.
• Post these rules on your blog.
• List seven random and/or weird facts about yourself
• Tag seven random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
• Let each person know that they have been tagged by posting a comment on their blog.

I was tagged by Scott at StickIt. And I'm going to tag Jennifer of Shadows of Perfection, and Bob of My Life with the Pump and anyone else who may happen across my blog. Also I'd love it if you'd tell me if you do do the meme. Thanks.

Thunderin' Soup

Yelling and thundering of little boys' feet echo through the house as they chase a brown blur (formerly known as our cat) through the living room.



Impromptu tickle fights in the kitchen.



"Get Jessica!!! Get her!!" he he giggle giggle



"No, she's got me, save yourself Lars!" The ever dramatic Karl shouts in between gasps of laughter.



But instead of heeding Karl's sage advice, Lars ran full speed at me in hopes of getting a finger to my ribs. He should have known better. I had him in giggle fits in exactly 2.3 seconds.



While I'm on the topic of Lars, he did a number on my neck tonight. He was sitting on my lap playing with my medical ID necklace. Every time he pulled it out he'd ask, "What's it say?"



"It says Diabetic kiddo."



" 'Betic?" He'd venture.



"Close enough."



Then he'd stick it back under my t-shirt. Wait two seconds and ask again.



After an hour he got bored with pulling it in and out and started running the tag around the chain. Well I wasn't paying very close attention and he pulled the chain tight and pushed the tag up to my neck. It pinched my skin and drew blood. I paying no attention at all so it caught me completely off guard causing me to jump so bad that my laptop went flying. I scared Lars but luckily he didn't go flying with my laptop. I love the kid to pieces but now I'm gonna have to explain to my roommates that, no, I did not get a hickey while I was home. That, in fact, my little brother gave it to me. Here's to hoping they believe me. :D



For dinner we had this wonderful soup that my mom suggested we have. Dad made a homemade chicken noodle soup that had carrots, potatoes, celery and few other things I can't remember at the moment. Man was it good. Not only did it taste good it looked good too.



I'm so looking forward to left-overs.

Lost and Found.

2:30am:

We were (Paul, Sarah, and me) all driving home from visiting friends and babysitting brothers. Paul was driving, Sarah was nodding off in the back seat and I was digging around in my big black backpack to find a pen. I was digging around in my bag so I could jot down some notes on what we did. I was digging through old assignments and old syringes that had yet to make it to my sharps container and I felt something in the bottom of my bag that I had thought I'd never see again.

"You have got to be kidding me!" I yelled out.

"What" Paul glanced at me in confusion.

I pulled my head from the depths of my bag and looked at Paul in shock.

"Guess what I just found?"

"You're mind?" He grinned cheekily at me.

I rolled my eyes."No, stupid." I laughed at him. "I found my Mp3 player. You know the one I lost like 3 weeks ago?"

"You never thought to look in you bag?"

"Of course I looked in my bag. I turned it literally inside out and took every single thing out of it. Then I flipped my room upside down and tore apart the apartment. It had completely disappeared."

At this time Sarah decided to wake up a little to wonder who was going to clean her rice cooker now. (She was referring to my bribe from a couple of weeks ago. If she found my Mp3 player before I did, I'd clean out her rice cooker. It had been sitting there for a few weeks before I lost my Mp3 player. Now it's been sitting there for nearly a month and a half and I swear the rice has now crawled, called us mama and now goes to college along with us.)

Anyway...

I never realized how much I rely on my technology until I lost it. I only went to the gym 3 times while it had been lost. Music is my motivator. When I have something difficult to do or I really need to focus I pop my earphones in and crank my tunes.

I am so glad I've found it again. My daddy got it for me and it really means a lot to me. Thanks Dad.

Sisterhood

"Chance made us sisters... Love made us friends"

She listens to my ramblings and obsessive talk about diabetes where everyone else gets irritated. She is truly interested in not only my health but anything I feel like yacking about. She takes the time to just be there. She wants to know how to treat a low. She waited patiently while I dug around my room to find my glucagon. She's the one who asked how to use it. She's the one that said to put it in the kitchen so she could grab if she needed to. She's the one who understood enough to ask what she needs to do to test my blood sugar. She's the one that wanted to how to bring my blood sugar down.

She's the one that assumes that my happiest news is that I'm going to get my pump when in fact all I was pumped about was my replacement bike. But when I am excited about a new development in getting my pump she's just as hyper as I am.

She's the tall blond with the dark underlights and bleeding blue streak in her bangs. She's the one with the warm open arms. She's has the shoulder that I can cry on when life is going terribly wrong. She has the humor that can make me laugh so hard my sides hurt. She has the smile that can brighten any day.

She understands hard times and mistakes. She has the experience to truly say, "I understand." She has the heart that truly cares.

She's the one that freaks when I take care of a terrible blood sugar reaction on my own. She's the admonishing tone that requires I ask for help when I need it. She's the one that notices that I've passed out rather than just fallen asleep. She's the hero that wakes me up and pushes me to check my BG. She's the one that comes through the fog and says, "You need to treat that low."

She's the older sister I've never had and always wanted. She's the friend that is steady and dependable even if she is late to everything. She's there when it matters. She's another best friend. She is a wonderful roommate. She's a friend for life.

I just want to say thank-you to my friend Spoon. Without her I'd be more lost than I already am. If you ever read this post, I want to say thanks for being you. Thanks for being there. I love you like family and you know how much family means to me.

Bungee Jumping

I pulled my head out from underneath my over sized pillow. I felt like I'd just finished an Iron Man. My mouth tasted like I'd been chewing on cow manure. My hair was a sweaty mess both clinging to my head and standing out at odd angles. All of this due to my blood sugar bungee jumping without my permission.
I grabbed my cell to see how late in the day it was, but my roommate beat me to the punch.

"It's four." She said in a matter-of-fact tone.

"Crap, Work was at ten!” my voice came out like gravel.

I flipped open my phone and scrolled down until I found Information Alliance in my contacts and called in to let them know I was sick and not coming in. Next I called Carl's Jr.

I felt and still feel unreliable. I wonder if anyone else has had to do this or if most would just go in anyway.

"Man, Jess, you sound awful."

"I feel awful. I wonder what my BS is sitting at now?"

I grabbed my meter.

168. Not bad. For me anyway.

I scrolled through the history. The last entries read 386, 86, and 50. Like I said earlier, bungee jumping.

At about seven I had woken up shaking like a fall leaf. My heart was pounding at around 200 M.P.H. I grabbed my meter and stabbed my finger like five times before I actually pushed hard enough to draw blood. I had to lay my hand on my lap so I could hold my trembling hand still enough to catch the blood into the meter.... 50.

I unsteadily stood and leaned against the wall as I made my way out of my room and into the kitchen. I sat in front of the cupboard and reached into my stash of root beer under the sink. I cracked open a can and drained it. I only needed about a third of the can but I was in panic mode. (Going low is not something I do very often. Usually I'm soaring in the clouds. I hate to admit it but my 30-day average is around 250. It's awful, I know, and I'm working on it.)

So as my heart pulled off the racetrack and my hands stilled, I took my blood sugar again. 86. I felt safe to go to bed now.

Next thing I know, I'm prying my sticky eyes open to the distant sound of my cell phone alarm going off. As I sat up it felt like my head was in vise grip and about to float away. I grabbed the meter off the nightstand and watched while the test strip sipped up the blood and considered it, yet again.... 386. Grr. I pulled up a syringe with 9 units and jabbed it in my side. I promptly dropped back into the bed and shoved my head under my pillow. The light barging in the window was killing my head.

While I slept the second time, I had some of the most disturbing nightmares I've had in a long while. The nightmares mostly centered on my best friend whom I shall refer to as Malchik. He had succeeded in a suicide attempt. And I still hadn't had the chance to see him since he withdrew from school and went back home in October. This guy means the world to me and I'm so scared that I might lose him.

After I had called into work and checked my BS, I started to quietly cry. I still felt the terror of losing my friend; I was still exhausted from my bungee jumping and I felt downright guilty for missing work.

Some days I really hate blood sugar. I think it needs to personified and shot. In the gut. Repeatedly.

Battle Scars.

"Ouch, Dang it! That's gonna leave a mark."

And it did. I looked down at my forearm and saw the shiny sign of my clumsiness. I swear I burned myself on the char broiler tonight like 10 times. It was my fourth day at my new job at Carl's Jr. tonight. I tried to be careful but let's face it, I'm a total klutz.

I have my fair share of battle scars. I've got scars on my knuckles from tearing computers apart. I very distinctly remember the first time I opened my first computer. And of course me being me, I drew blood.

The teacher had just given up on a computer and asked who wanted to tear it open and part it out. I eagerly volunteered. I grabbed a screwdriver and dove in. Unfortunately, no body told me how sharp computers are. I was wrestling with a particularly stubborn screw when my screwdriver decided that friction was no longer in effect and went flying. Of course my hand followed.

"Flip! That hurt."

I reached into the case to chase after the runaway screwdriver and ended up having to pick up the tower to shake it out. When I finally got ahold of it I happened to glance at the back of my hand. It was rather brilliant shade of red.

"Dagnabit!"

I ducked my head into the case and saw the evidence of my hand all over the hard drive. That didn't make it into the keep pile.

I have battle scarred knuckles due to my love/hate relationship with computers. I rarely part out a computer without a blood sacrifice to the tech gods.

Now I'm slowly earning my battle scars from diabetes. Mostly from the constant testing. As I was showering yesterday I took a good look at my pruning hands. My fingers don't look like they did a year ago. A year ago my fingers were unmarked and pruned just like everyone else's fingers. Now... They look like Normandy.

Nothing but craters in each finger tip. But these scars are worth it. They are a result of my battle with diabetes. They are what will tip the odds into my hands. The more craters I have the more control I have and the further diabetes gets beaten back.

I'm proud of my craters. I will win this war.

Nadda

Not much happened today. Got a lab done and picked up prescriptions. So I'm just going to post my MBTI badge.

Inspection.

Food. Hair. Syringe Caps. Bobby Pins. Dishes. Nothing.

Those are the things that kept popping up today during our in-depth cleaning of our apartment. We have dorm inspection tomorrow and we have to be up to par or we'll be fined. So we all got together this afternoon and jumped in.

During the laughing, teasing and general fun, Spoon and I found that all of us leave something around the apartment.

"Good grief, I never realized how much of the food in the freezer is mine. Same for the fridge." Spoon said with surprise as she replaced it after her thorough scrub of the refrigerator.

"And the pantry and the cupboards." I thought. Spoon is definitely stocked. If only she were ever home to eat it.

"You know, we all leave something around the apartment. Dot has her hair that is everywhere. You (me) have those little caps (insulin syringe tops). And Hipster has her bobby pins." She pointed out.

"And Sarah has her dishes that are always in the sink. What about Twitch?" I asked.

We both sat for a sec thinking.

"She's not here enough to leave anything around." We decided.

I think having roommates is the best thing in the world. One thing I love about my roommates is our nicknames. Spoon, Dot, Lucky (me), Hipster, Truffle and Twitch.

There's a story behind each that we told when we first sat down and got to know each other. They're based on embarrassing stories, my unusual luck, a bum hip from last year, a commonly used user name on the net, the fact that one can't sit still.

We use them on our chore chart that sits in the living room. Almost every visitor, upon reading our chore board, asks the same question.

"Who the heck is Spoon?"

We point her out.

"WHY is her name Spoon?" They always ask in curiosity.

"Not gonna tell you." Is the pat reply.

"Oh come on. Who am I going to tell?" they'll whine.

"Sorry."

For some reason they can't take no for answer but they will always leave disappointed because none of us will ever tell the hilarious story. I mean, come on, first, we're friends. Second, who in their right mind would snitch on the person you live with? They know where you sleep. I don't want to be murdered in my sleep.

I love nicknames. I've accumulated a few. Stinky, Henry, Grace, Jess, Druggie, Lucky. I cherish them all and they all have memories to go alongside them. I know that I'll always remember my roommate's names with humor in my heart. Just like I'll always think of they, themselves, with humor. I couldn't have been blessed with better roommates.

Authorized.

"Yes!!"

That's what I felt like shouting when my doctor told me I can get a pump. I have been waiting so long. (Well not that long, but long enough) I started looking into pumps three or four months ago and talked to my diabetic educator about it a month and a half ago. I set up a doctor appointment as soon as was possible but they hadn't an opening today.

So this morning I pulled myself out of bed around 10ish. Bad, I know. And then ran out the door and started speed walking toward the Budge clinic. I got there at 10:43. The appointment was at 10:45. Crap! So I finally figured out which desk assistant I was supposed to talk to and I found out that they're running about 15 minutes late. I let out a sigh of relief. I absolutely hate being late, drives me up the walls.

So when they finally called me in I crinkled on the bed while shifting waiting for Dr. Brown. He finally came in and asked,"What is your number one reason for being here?"

First word on my tongue, "Pump."

He asked me a few questions about pumps and seemed rather impressed with the amount of research I had done. He didn't know how badly I've wanted a pump.

I'm so excited.

On another brief note, we're going to attempt to battle my depression with Celexa (sp?). Here's to hoping.

I'm a walking bio hazard

"Good grief Jess! Your half of the room is a bio hazard!" My roommate exclaimed.
"You have everything from syringes to socks laying everywhere. Those socks of yours are threatening to eat my clothes."

I think the health department would have my neck if they were to look at my bedroom in my dorm. I can usually see the floor, although lately, it's gotten a little out of control. I have three full Sharps containers sitting in my closet and one sitting on my night stand. I have torn open and partially empty bags of syringes sitting in my open night stand drawer. On my desk and in my closet too. Then you look in my coat or my backpack and they litter the pockets. They are everywhere.

A few weeks ago my roommate's little sister came by and saw Sharps containers and few runaway syringes and asked Sarah (my roommate) if I was a druggie. That may be a nickname but, no, I don't do illegal drugs. I do do prescription amphetimines. That'd be for my ADHD, though. I also inject like an addict. Might have something to do with my addiction to food though, not sure yet.

Gentlemen, Start your engines!

I thought I'd just dive in. This is something I wrote to keep from bored at work.

"It was like I was speaking with peanut butter in my mouth. My tongue kept getting stuck to the roof of my mouth. The people I was surveying kept asking me to repeat what I had said. When I went on break I completely lost sense of time. I swear I'd barely sat down at the break table then glanced at the clock, it read 12:20. Becky had told me 12:10 as I'd left on my 15 minute break. I thought the clock was just off because I'd just sat down. When I returned she said I'd been gone for 21 minutes. This was so weird because I usually take only 10 minutes. So I sat back at my desk and checked my BS...384. :( No wonder."

I took 6 units.

As I had been checking my BS my team lead walked by and commented, "I never knew you had Diabetes. How long have you had it?"

"Oh, I've had it about 9 months."

Surprised, "Really, Is that Type 2 then?"

"Nope, oddly enough it's Type 1", I said.

Her eyes widened, "Wow, that is unusual. Good luck with it."

I thought it was a bit funny because I remember telling her and my other team leads about my diabetes. They all had been rather surprised. I'd just mentioned that I'd need to test and eat occasionally during the long shifts.

Two hours later it was down to 138. Much better. Felt so much better and I could actually talk. Felt great to be able to actually speed through a survey instead of stumbling.

So here's a wee bit about myself. My first job is telephone market research. I call people and drive them nuts with 20 questions plus. I also work at Carl's Jr. I'm also a full time freshmen at Utah State University. I'm the oldest of four and the only girl. My three brothers are Derreck (12), Karl (6), and Lars (2). I love my family to pieces. I've had Type 1 diabetes since January 24th, 2007. Right in the middle of my senior year I came into the ER with a blood sugar of 804. My life has never been the same since and I plan to write mostly about my diabetes experiences but I know the rest of my life will insinuate itself into my blogs. So until tomorrow...