Very Scary Day

Things never turn out the way you expect them to. Ever. I expected to have a great time spending time with my husband's family this week. They've been staying with us since Friday night - his brother Jason, his wife Kim and their four amazing kids. Kevin's other brother Matt, his wife Tricia and their twins are also here from Madison. It is a huge blessing to see my husband with his brothers again. And watching my kids interact with their cousins is something I could never put a price on.

Unfortunately I would get sick!! We spent the entire day in the city on Saturday and on the way back I noticed I was feeling very run down and my throat was a little scratchy. I figured I was just tired and it was from being out on the boat tour. But, by morning it was clear something more was going on. I waited it out until Monday morning until which I promptly drove myself to the walk in care for a throat swab. I was sure it was strep. Once I got their they noticed my heart rate was very elevated and wanted to check into that further by having me lay down, check it and then sit up and check it. We didn't even get that far. I passed out on the table and when I came to they were hooking me up to a heart monitor and giving me drugs to slow my heart rate down. I guess it was up towards 200? The second shot of the drug didn't work so they got some EMTs to transfer me via ambulance to Rush Hospital. I thought I was going to die. I told the people to please not let me die because I had an amazing husband and three beautiful children who needed me. They took really good care of me. It was absolutely surreal. I am 30. I am a healthy person. I have NEVER had anything like this happen to me in my entire life.

The EMT warned me that if my heart rate didn't come down they would need to shock me with the paddles. So they had me try some vagal manuevers like blowing into a straw in the ambulance (while we were waiting for a GOD DAMNED train on Ogden) and they helped thank the lord. I was able to get my rate back down in the 140s-150s by the time we reached the hospital.

I stayed at Rush where they did some more basic testing to find the cause of this illness, heart failure - no strep, no swine flu or any flu or any other signs of anything besides a fever and they fact that I was in bad shape. I had an elevated blood sugar of 167, but nothing else. My heart rate went back into the 130s where they felt comfortable discharging me with orders to see a cardiologist at the heart center the next day (this morning.).........

So here I sit killing time until I head over to see a cardiologist to see what they heck is wrong with me. The theory of the ER doc was that some type of infection had spead to my sac around my heart and was causing the distress. Hopefully it's easily remedied and I can get back to feeling normal soon. I see my family practice doctor this afternoon as well for thyroid tests and other blood work to see if illness is an underlying cause. I am trying to stay calm, but this caught me out of nowhere. Please keep me and my family in your thoughts and prayers that they would be able to find and treat whatever is causing this. I will update as soon as I know something else!!!

Music For Your Ears

Or music to your ears. Whichever. My husband has been awake working until 2 am (and getting up at 5am!) on some computer geek project the past three days. Needless to say, he went to bed early! I am a night owl, so I thought I would do something I haven't done in awhile and blog about some new music. I've been listening to a lot of new and different stuff - I'm still into my guster and my keane and travis, but have been branching out a bit. You may or may not be a fan!!!

Ian Brown has really been growing on me over the last few weeks. He is actually the former lead singer of the madly popular English band called The Stone Roses. They were big back in the late 80s. He's put out a lot of solo albums since leaving the bandin 96, but the one I've been listening to the most is 'The Greatest' which is essentially a greatest hits. He's been able to fuse dance and rock music together which is so cool. Smooth voice, good dance beat? Works for me! His music is mixed really well and the collaborations with DJ Unkle are some of my faves. He's a weird looking guy. If you're a big CSI fan, you might have heard some of his stuff on the show! Supposedly he's pretty good live, so maybe if he ever comes this way I can check him out!

Check out some of his stuff.....

'Reign' with Unkle


'F.E.A.R'


Eternal Flame - no this is not a Bangles cover!


'Lovebug' - silly, but super cool!!!


'All Ablaze'


'Keep What You Got' - with the Gallagher bros from Oasis who were totally inspired by Ian Brown apparently


And this last song isn't on 'The Greatest' but I think it could very well be my favorite!

'Set My Baby Free'


So there you have it! As I always say, it's good to try new things. Music isn't an exception!!

SYTYCD - Top 20

So I am a little late in blogging about this, but I can't tell you enough how much I love this show!! The audtions aired over the last two weeks and it never ceases to suprise me how much talent there is out there. Or how many idiots for that matter! Anyways, last night the top 20 dancers were partnered up and got to compete in a randomly chosen dance style. Tonight we find out which guy and which gal goes home. Here were a few of my favorites and not-so-favorites of the night!!



Probably my favorite! This was an amazing samba routine choreographed by Louis van Amstel and danced by Kayla and Max. Max is a ballroom dancer, but Kayla isn't! I thought she was amazing!!!


This is my second fave. Mandy Moore is *such* an amazing choreographer. The lines and emotion in this dance were just beautiful to me. And Melissa! She's 29 and a ballet dancer, so that probably makes her my favorite girl. Ade wasn't too bad either. But *why* with the Richard Marx song???!! Blah!


Coming in third for me was the bollywood routine with Caitlin and Jason. This style intrigues me so much! The colors and the energy! I think it'd be so fun to learn! SYTYCD had Nakul Dev Mahajan choreograph their first bollywood routine last season and this routine was just as cool.

Some others.......


I love Evan!!! I wish they would have let his brother into the top 20 too! His style is super old school, so this jazz number from Tyce Diorio fit him perfectly. Randi is pretty amazing too!


Jeanine and Philip did great with this hip hop routine from husband/wife choreography duo Tabitha and Napoleon. Love them!!! Phillip is a popper/locker and I hope he makes it far enough for us to see some of his signature stuff!

This one was a major WTF?? for me...

Wade Robson, you have some serious mental issues. I get that dance tells a story and all that shite, but seriously dude. You were so much cooler when you were choreographing dances for Britney!!! Anyways, the back story on this dance in case you didn't see it was that these two are crash test dummies. Kupono (the guy) is an older beat up dummy and Ashley is shiny and new. And then they make friends and la la la la.... WTF!!!!!!! Just pick a cool song and make up a cool dance, you giant weirdo. And is Mary Murphy not the Paula Abdul of SYTYCD?? She's so annoying!!! I mean, say something productive!!!

SO there you have it. There were some other dances that were pretty good too, but these were the ones that stood out for me most. For one reason or another!!! Can't wait to watch tonight to see who is heading home. Stay tuned for more So You Think You Can Dance posts each week!!

The 90s Were So Cool - Week 6

Remember the film 'Kids'? Then you remember this song. It's from the soundtrack. This one was out in '95 I think?? This is indie rock at its very best!!!

'Natural One' Folk Implosion


Weird ass video, but super cool song. Happy Monday!!!

Summer Project Fun

I'm not sure Kevin would agree with me about the fun part, but it is summer and we are getting some projects finished. As usual, we started new ones when old ones weren't finished! I guess turning 30 didn't change me for the better in that whole 'finish what I started' aspect, but oh well. You can't change overnight!

Since we've been having a lot of cool, rainy weather here (what IS up with that?!) we've been able to accomplish a lot of indoor things. The fireplace has been quite a dilema since day one - it didn't really serve any purpose the way it was designed and always threw me for a loop as to how to decorate it. Here's how it started....

Just rounded drywall with no trim....


Then we added the tile and molding around it....


And here's how it looked once Kevin added the columns around the tv....


And here's where we are now - we added another canister light above the tv and the crown molding around the tops of the columns and drywalled behind the tv....


And the other side that faces the front room has a black wall sconce for extra lighting on the right side and eventually I'll hang a big black framed mirror above the fireplace....


Eventually the columns will have more molding on the fronts of them and everything will be painted white. We'll also add a shelf above the components next to the tv for dvds and other stuff. So we're getting there!!!

I found some wall frames for my gallery wall above the couch. I have bunches of old family photos from my side and Kevin's side of the family that will go up there. Should be cool, but for now here's how it looks!



And this weekend we got the last room of carpet ripped out - Liv's room! Yay! It feels great to be rid of it. Kevin's at Menard's right now getting the new subfloor and then we'll be sticking flooring all night! More pictures to follow when that's all finished. Then all we'll really have left to do is to put the quarter round down in the upstairs. I am still super impressed with the Novalis flooring. It does scuff a bit, but it's not any worse than hard wood would be. And we've only had to replace one plank where I dropped something and it dented it. All we did was heat it up with the heat gun, pull it up and put a new one down. Pretty simple!!!

So that's it for now. As soon as the fireplace is done, I'll be sure to post some pictures of that. For now, we're just over here working on it! ;)

The 90s Were So Cool - Week 5

It's officially June! Hooray! I have been listening to lots of new bands over the past week or so and I'm really excited to blog about them. For now, here's the weekly 90s music fix!

This week I am going with Spacehog and 'In the Meantime.' It's got this relaxing, summery vibe going on which I love.



Such a great song. Nevermind the lead singer is fried out of his mind! And nevermind that this was their only top 40 hit. Guess that makes them a one hit wonder! Oh, well. This tune still takes me back to the good old days of 1996!

Back of the Yard

I have always wanted to have a vegetable garden even though I don't have too much of a green thumb. I think it's the pride of growing your own food that appeals to me. Plus, I really like most vegetables!! So this year with the help of Mel Bartholomew's 'Square Foot Gardening' book, we planted our very own vegetable garden.



It's a really simple way of growing only what you need in a small space. So far it seems to be fairly low maintenence although I can see I am going to be obsessed with weeding the little squares. I had to let some of the little weeds grow because at first I couldn't tell what was a weed and what was a seed. But now things are coming along nicely so I am all over those weeds at the first sign of one popping up!!! Here are a few pictures of our layout....


This is the whole thing with the compost bin at the right. We just put all of our egg shells, coffee grounds, yard clippings and fruit/veggies rinds in it!!


The right section of the garden. The back squares have tomato plants in them which will grow up the wires strung on the fence. That will save lots of space and make for easier harvesting. Then there are two squares of yellow wax beans and two squares of green peppers. The peppers we grew from seed in the house. These are the only two plants that survived the transplant and they look like crap. But we'll see if they produce anything!!! Then in the next row we have four squares of green bush beans. And then a corner square of nasturtiums and marigolds which look cute and deter pests. Next to them there are two squares of lettuce for salads!


In the left section there are three squares of cucumbers which will also grow up the wires. I love cucumbers and may even try making homemade pickles if I get the notion! In front of that there is a red pepper plant (which I bought at the Walmart), and two squares of spinach for spinach salads. Then there is another square of green peppers and next to that two squares of carrots! In the front row we planted more lettuce (we like salad!) and a corner section of chives.

I also planted some herb seeds in some window boxes that hang directly under the kitchen window. I love fresh herbs for cooking!!


I planted mint (for mojitos YO!), basil, oregano, garlic chives, dill, lemon balm chamomile and cilantro.

So hopefully we'll be harvesting a lot of good stuff this year!!! It's been fun for the kids to help with the planting and watering. They get so excited when something sprouts. Maybe growing our own veggies will make them more excited to eat them? Not sure about that! My brother was here last week and helped me get the tomatoes and peppers in. He worked at a greenhouse in high school, so he knows a lot about all this gardening stuff!! I hope to add more to the garden next season, but wanted to start out simple at first so I wouldn't get overwhelmed and give up. I would love to maybe do some summer squashes and melons. And maybe some asparagras and rhubarb!!!

Just for kicks, here is a picture of some of my flowers that are blooming nicely along the back of the house. I painted the back door cobalt blue to match my bird bath and patio umbrella, but for some reason the paint didn't stick in some parts so now I have to figure out what to do! The brightness scared me (and the neighbors) at first, but I think it looks so nice now with the bright colors of the flowers. Hopefully I can fix it!!!


My original inspiration was from the 'Doors of Dublin.'

In Dublin (and much of Europe for that matter), they have mostly tan or grey stone houses and buildings so it's quite common to see a brightly painted entry door with white trim and archways. I thought I'd bring a little Dublin and a little color to my backyard and blah white door by painting it bright blue. Nevermind that it backfired and now I have to fix it. I still think the idea was good!!!

So that's what's going on in the back of the yard here!! I hope to post more pictures of the plants as they start producing yummy veggies AND some good recipes to go along with them. Until then, I'll be out back weeding!!! ;)