Finger Update

So this is what my finger looked like a few days ago. It's looking better all the time. It's not as black as it is in this picture. I still can't use it for anything including typing. I've learned to move my pinkie finger over to use instead of my other finger. It still does hurt, but it's not broken and I get to keep it so that's great! (It's now been a few more days and my finger is almost back to the same color as the others. For some reason when this picture posts it makes my fingers look sqatty and fat. They are really normal fingers--not how they look here.:)

Topsail

I went to Topsail North Carolina for Memorial Day weekend. It was so beautiful and was just what I needed. I felt like when I got there I started to shed all of my worries, problems, and anxieties. I could just be there and not have to think about anything. Not that I didn't, but I did try. :)
My friend Lynn was so generous and let me stay at her wonderful beach house with her family. This is the view from the deck. I loved waking up to this every morning.
This is how I spent every day--at the beach. Jack, Lynn's husband, would come out for a few hours and ask when I was coming in. I explained that for me going to the beach is literally being there all day. I think he was a bit surprised. I just love the sound of the water, watching the waves, reading a book, etc. Heaven!
I was trying to hold a door open and the wind came up and slammed the door on my finger. You can't really tell in this picture, but it was black and now (two days later) three fourths of my finger is black. It is doing a lot better and I am typing on my computer so that's great. I have to go back to work tomorrow and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to type.
This is the beach house we stayed in. The great thing was that there wasn't a house on either side of us and it was just lawn. That made it so it felt like we had the beach to ourselves because people typically stay close to their houses so they can go in and out without having to walk far. It was awesome!

Really Hot Yoga!

I decided I need to move more because I have gained weight (eating too much chocolate) and I mostly sit for hours and hours at my job. I have wanted to get back into yoga so I decided to try a class at a studio near my house. The temperature in the room was set around 105 degrees and we did power yoga for an hour and a half. It was so intense! I was sweating from every pour in my body. Can you imagine sweating so much that you can't even do certain poses because you are slipping on the mat. I think it's probably really good for you because you sweat out all of the toxins in your body. I think I am going to do it for awhile and see how it goes. The only problem is that when you get home you have to drink like a gallon of water so I was up every other hour using the bathroom. Grrrr! I do not want to sacrifice my sleep for yoga. :)

Melissa and Ben's Wedding

Ben Moss, Melissa Moss (as of today), and me.

Jen Anderson, Nicole Davis, Carrie Johanson (holding little Claire Davis), Tiffanie Williams, and me.
Melissa's colors were orange and pink. When I heard that I thought they would be hideous together, but it was really quite beautiful! You can see how well they go together on the cake.
This was the grooms cake. Ben does construction and is working on a degree in construction management.

Melissa and Ben got married yesterday. What a fun wedding. I went around 1:30 in the afternoon so I could help with the setup of the reception. This is the group of us who set up the reception. There was one other guy who isn't in the photo. Ginger (in the back) did such a great job organizing everything and making it so beautiful! We are holding sparkling cider for the toast during the reception.

It didn't rain all day, but as soon as the bride and groom arrived it started to pour. It rained on and off for the rest of the reception. We were under a tent, but some of the tables still got wet and the hair really frizzed from the humidity. It all worked out though. The tables had candles on them and it made it look kind of magical. The tent was away from the building so it was it's own little world for a few hours.

There was a little dance floor in the tent. We actually got up and danced. The music was so Melissa and Tiffanie. There were songs like "Pour Some Sugar On Me" and "Love Shack." It was a lot of fun. My friend Carrie flew in from Arizona. It was so good to see her, but with everything going on and the music we really didn't have a chance to talk. That's often the down side to events with a lot of people. There is so much going on.

I don't typically do wedding receptions because I find them tedious. However, the last few wedding receptions I have attended (of my really good friends) have been a lot of fun because I know many of the people there and I get to catch up (at least briefly) with people I haven't seen in awhile.

Bachelorette Party

One of my close friends, Melissa Hill, is getting married this weekend. To celebrate her bachelorettehood (is that a word?) Tiffanie (another close friend) threw a bachelorette party for her. Instead of a male stripper (I don’t need to see that), Tiffanie hired someone to teach us exotic dancing. It was so much fun and so hilarious. Plus it was a great workout. Try working out in three inch heels for an hour and you’ll see what I mean. We were laughing the entire time and just had an absolute blast.

Every time I have mentioned this to a guy since Saturday their eyes totally light up and they are quite attentive. Of course they also want to see the moves. I tell them they could take a class too. Now that would be hilarious! Anyway, at one point in the dance routine we were supposed to sit on the floor and move our legs. I think the instructor was tired so she was showing us what to do by using her hands. Well, Melissa misunderstood and thought she was supposed to be doing it with her hands too. I was behind her and saw what she was doing. It was so hilarious because moving your arms like that is not sexy at all. She was so intent on doing it correctly. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t get out the words to tell her that she was supposed to be doing it with her legs. Finally the instructor caught on and told her what to do. It was just so funny!

The instructor played some song that had ‘diva’ in it and we were told that every time the word ‘diva’ was said we were to strike a diva pose. It was so funny to kind of watch 18 girls striking diva poses. Most of us were laughing too hard to get the full affect. She had us do this move where we “slime down” to the floor (basically a really low squat) and then do a peek-a-boo move where you move your thighs together and then apart. Then you come up just to your behind, arch your back, come up the rest of the way and flick your head. Let me tell you, it’s Tuesday and (this was on Saturday) and my thighs still hurt!

She was really into her booty so we did a lot of shaking our booty’s. It really was so funny. When I left I felt so joyous and so happy. I love that feeling. It seems so illusive and rare.

We went to dinner and then back to Melissa and Tiffanie's home. We played a game called 'pin the junk on the hunk.' Yes you can imagine what that means. Also imagine a bunch of LDS women playing this game. It was too hilarious! It was a fun night!

Oklahoma City April 2010

I'm at the baseball stadium in Oklahoma City.

This is the memorial in Oklahoma City. It was very well done and very calm.

When we were downtown in Oklahoma there was no one there. All these high rises and no one. It felt like a ghost town. We kind of wondered if the streets were blocked off and we didn't know about it. Someone told me it's like they roll up the sidewalks. I loved this sculpture--probably because it was red :), but it was really cool. You can see me there at the bottom to give you perspective.

I went on business to Oklahoma City. I really did not have high expectations, but it actually turned out to be a blast! We worked during the day and then went and did stuff at night. The funniest story is about a bar. There is a bar there that has live bulls. Well I just had to see that. So I was telling some people in my class (I wasn’t taking a class, but was sitting on the prototype making changes to the course that students wanted.) that we were going to go there and they were welcome to come. I had invited like ten guys. (Almost everyone there is male—and old, but adorable.) Well this guy told me that they didn’t have live bulls that night, but they had ‘male review night.’ I had no idea what that meant, but didn’t want to sound stupid. Finally I told him I didn’t understand and he told me that it meant male strippers. Now I could totally just picture the scene. I go into this bar with these ten guys behind me and then the guys on the stage start taking off their clothes. It was just too hilarious! I hurriedly told all the men that we were not going that night. They encouraged me to go, but I did not. :)

We did go to a baseball game—minor league. I had never been to a baseball game like that before. It was really fun! We went with a big group—about thirteen of us. I was in a very giggly mood. At one point someone said something to me that I found particularly funny and I was totally laughing. The guy in front of me (from my group) turned around and said ‘you aren’t a happy person are you.’ It was really funny and really kind of made his day. He couldn’t get over that I was laughing so much.

The other thing that was kind of funny/wild was about me meeting this couple. The whole trip I would meet these people in random ways—like in the elevator or at the gym (yes I went every day I was there—yea me J) So it became the subject of conversation with my project manager and me every time we got in the car to see ‘what crazy I talked to that day.’

At the game I met this guy who happened to be the teams equipment manager. After talking to him for awhile I went back to my seat and told Mohammad that I had met another person. Well he turns to Deeke, (the guy I know who invited us to the game) and said ‘she’s just acquiring people.’ So Deeke says ‘ok, who do you want to meet.’ He kept asking so I finally turned around and said ‘these people.’ So he interrupts their conversation and says ‘Hi, this is Debbie she wants to meet you.’ It was really funny. I was super bubbly and started talking to them (they were very cool and went along with this.)

It ends up that they are from Cuba and I know someone who just moved from there and the guy actually taught my friends kids in school there. It was just so wild that we would actually have a connection.

Mohammad jokingly said, ‘why don’t you take a picture.’ I said that’s a great idea (even though I know he was totally teasing) and I took their picture. It was just so random. I showed the picture to my friend Laurie and she had me show it to her son who said it was actually his favorite teacher. What a small world!

Splintered

Here is the the after picture and the before below. Doesn't it look great!!!

Goodness, the last time I wrote was in March. That is so pathetic! The best way to describe my life lately is splintered. There has just been so much going on. I am working ten hour days and I’m not sure yet if I want to stick with them. It’s really nice to have one day off a week, but I get home and I’m just done. I eat dinner, get my clothes and gym clothes ready for the next day. I prepare my meal for the next day and then typically that leaves me little to no time to do anything else. I need to get up at 5:00 so I can get to the gym earlier, but I’ve just been too tired lately so I’ve been getting up at 5:30ish to get to the gym to do cardio.

I was sick with the ‘Debbie flu’ in March for twelve days then the day after I was finally better my mom and sister Cindy flew in from Utah to see me and Julie. It was great having them here. Cindy recovered my kitchen chairs and helped me hang some curtains. My mom did her wonder woman thing and organized my house. So now, instead of a storage unit piled high with boxes and miscellaneous stuff—wall-to-wall, I have a real guest room. I can now find things in my kitchen drawers, you can walk into my bedroom closet without tripping over a bunch of stuff, and I can easily access my dishes, medications, NS tool box. To say the very least, it’s wonderful!!! We worked on it for day and days. I got rid of three of the 50 gallon Rubbermaid bins and all the stuff inside. We took a car load to good will, a car load to recycle, and mom, Cindy, and Julie got the rest. It feels so good to be rid of things that I didn’t use or plan to use for awhile.

We did take one day off and went to Longwood gardens in Pennsylvania. They have these elaborate gardens and an atrium. It was beautiful! All of the pictures were taken with a my moms camera so I don't have any of the pictures. I'll see if I can get some uploaded so you can see them.