PackedInTheCarLikeSardines

 I'm totally kicking myself for not getting pictures of the car once it was packed with everything.  But alas, my friends, do not worry for the title of this blog is called "Married & Moving", we're 95% done with moving but we're not done.  We will be stuffing our little car once again and then settling into our 500 square foot studio apartment at the beginning of the next month.  I'll make it a point to take a picture of the car then.

We did manage to get THIS little video in!

Right after eating at Jim's we started driving straight to Roswell, NM.  Our goal was to make it out of Texas that day and then stay overnight in the Alien city.

*Some backstory for you guys if you're new: Mickey has epilepsy and so driving isn't something recommended and so I was the one making the trip and he was my co-pilot, partner-in-crime and DJ.

About 40 minutes after we first started driving, Mickey informed me about cruise control. I'd heard about it but considering that I never made any long trips or anything I didn't care to learn more about it. So, he told me about it, we figured it out in my car and bam! I cruise control-ed it for a big chunk of the way there.  It was awesome.  It's the little things my friends.

 We started seeing a little bit of snow as we were making our way out of Texas which was pretty cool seeing as we'd never seen snow together.  We stopped at a gas station and had a mini snowball fight.  I won.
Just kidding.
It was a tie.
But seriously, it was fun!
 We drove for about 8 hours that first day and everything was fine and dandy until we got into Roswell.  *Cue alien-themed music like the one on The X-Files* There was so much snow and us Texans do not know how to drive in the snow because even when there's a little ice on the road we freak out so much you'd think the world was ending. We didn't have chains or anything.  At first we thought "this is fine, yay, adventures!" And then Siri decided to take us a crazy long way where driving became a very difficult task.  I told Anderson [my car] to go one way and he would go the complete opposite.  I tried to keep my cool and pretend like I wasn't scared but by the end of it I was a total mess.  I started crying because I was tired and I didn't know how to drive in the snow and I turned to Mickey and reassured him I was having fun. So there I was half crying half smiling saying "I know I'm crying but this is fun. Yay! Experiences!" And then I continued to blubber that out.

We finally got to our hotel and I swear to you, I thought we were going to fall as we made our way into the lobby.  Luckily, we didn't. We checked-in, our room was super nice and then hunger set in.  We ordered pizza but they said they couldn't deliver because of the snow and that was pretty much the only place we could find that was open and so we trekked our way of the warm and cozy hotel out into the treacherous winter snow.  We drove on a normal street and so I kept saying "It's okay, I'm a professional, this isn't my first time driving in the snow". Which, duh. It wasn't. But I had to drive like 15MPH and then we got a call from the pizza place asking where we were (because they were going to close early because of the snow) and long story short, we finally made it, we got our pizza, Mickey almost slipped and we headed back.

By the time we got back to the room, we were exhausted and famished.  We ate, watched The Food Network, my body started aching horribly, I took an Aleve, and then shortly after, we both zonked out.  It was awesome.  9pm. Ladies and gentlemen, you can just call us old farts now, it's okay with me. 

We woke up the next morning and the kind people that clean up the snow around cars and roads, had done so already. We made our way out of the hotel and got ready for Day 2 of the trip.  Not before taking these pictures though.  You can clearly see how cold we were.  But look at the snow!!

The next day was going to be the longest.  Like an almost 9 hour drive.  To be honest, it wasn't bad.  5 hours flew by and then it was like "We're more than halfway there!". What no one tells you about traveling west is how fun it is to be going through time.  Time change guys.  It's so cool.  We added an hour and then on the third day we gained another hour.  It was super cool.  Our drive to Phoenix was much easier because the snow slowly started diminishing.  Everything was fine until the last hour and a half.  My ears are big sissies when it comes to elevation.  Seriously, when I fly, Mickey and I found this to work when we went on our honeymoon [Whoop whoop!], I have to take a decongestant, have several packs of gum, use a nasal spray (Afrin) and use Ear Planes.  So apparently my ears don't discriminate.  I thought they were just sensitive when it came to flying. Nope. They don't like elevations changes in cars either.

I had some major problems (MAJOR PROBLEMS, How I Met Your Mother anyone?) with my ears, they were just as bad as they get when I fly.  It was pretty sucky. So, of course, I started crying.  Again.  When my ears hurt that bad, it feels like my eardrums are going to burst and my jaw starts hurting.  Yeah.  So I kept driving and chewing my gum like nobody's business.  We pumped up the music so I didn't focus on anything but the music.  We played Adele.  And just when I was about to belt out "HELLO FROM THE OTHER SIDE" my ears popped for the first time in a long time and it hurt like a mother.  I teared up.  Thanks Adele.  Always making people cry.  But it helped they kept popping and un-popping for a while.  It got better. 

At one point, just 30 minutes from our hotel in Phoenix this semi was blocking the entire road.  Cars started piling up behind us and we turned off our car and just relaxed.  It was too chilly to get outside although plenty of people were out of the cars behind us.  It was nice. It was like God's way of saying, take a break.

We got to the hotel. It was NICE.  We had food in the restaurant downstairs and enjoyed watching our boys, the amazing San Antonio Spurs, playing the Suns and beating them badly.  :)
We had spotted a Waffle House legit, like right outside our hotel and so we made plans for our last day to eat breakfast there.  We had survived the longest day of our trip!

We had waffles at the Waffle House and geez, they're sooooo good.  If you have near you, give it a try.  Seriously.  Yum.

We left for California that last day, on the 31st and we drove on Route 66! It was cool! We started looking around more and enjoying the scenery because that day we only had to drive for like 5 hours.  Pshh.  Piece. of. cake.
The drive was beautiful. 
Once we crossed the Calfornia state line we started playing California music.  What music is that you ask?



1. California Dreaming by the Mamas and the Papas
2. California Love by 2Pac
3. Californication Red Hot Chili Peppers
4. Hotel California by The Eagles.
ETC.
You get the idea.  
I highly recommend you do this when traveling to California.  It makes you feel like a total BA.  It's awesome. 
The rest of the drive wasn't hard. We were total goofs looking around and just absorbing California in all its glory.  

So, right now, we're staying with friends until we move into our 500 sq ft. apartment.  We're uber excited and so thankful for all of the help we've received.  Here's us crossing our fingers that our adventures have calmed down for the moment and we get certain things working in our favor.  I'm being totally vague but positive thoughts and vibes would be deeply appreciated. 
:)

{WFTM}: Three in one week? Not on schedule.

Yeah, that's right, I had three meltdowns this week.  Not cool.  I think it's just because it's getting closer to to the holidays and some concerts that we, choir, have during the fall semester and I have so many memories attached to them.  I don't know.  It's difficult.  I miss her so much, it's hard to put into words.  I wish it were 2005 or something and we could see her diagnosis coming and maybe treat the disease earlier but I know that's not a possibility.  A girl can dream though, right? 

Two out of the three meltdowns I had this week were on the same day but for different reasons.  One of them happened as I was driving the route I used to drive all the time and, more importantly, the day we found out, it was seriously like being in a nightmare.  My hands got cold and numb, just like that day and my heart started racing, just like that day.  Lesson learned: Don't go that route for a very, VERY long time. {There is no need to do depressing things} The other one was just because I really miss her, I miss her hugs and her laugh.  Oh dear, just thinking about it makes me teary-eyed.  I miss everything about her.  So I just had a meltdown in the car.  The final meltdown of the week was friday night.  I recently bought my annual New York calendar.  Every single time I'd get one, I always drew a little heart on August 1, my grandma's birthday (whom I never met but know she was one awesome lady), April 26, my mom's birthday and then mine, May 25.  This time it was weird, I drew a little heart on April 26 but the waterworks just came when I thought about that day.  I wrote a little note to my mom on that square so it was nice but it still hit me like a ton of bricks.  "Hello Amy! She's not here anymore, she won't be here that day and you won't ever be able to celebrate her birthday with her again.  Oh and by the way, your kids will never get to meet her and your future husband won't either!" I know, depressing thoughts right? And totally random because this was only about her birthday but I'm a planner and I plan ahead and jump to the future.  So, there you have it. I had three meltdowns this week.  Let's hope this week is better.

As far as trying new things, the whole dark green nail polish thing didn't work out, it scared me and reminded me of mold.  So, now I have this new color called….wait for it…Prince Charming, haha, funny right? This is a much better color and it doesn't look like mold.  One very new thing I did try this week was put air in my tires, well Anderson's tires (my car, don't judge).  I remember my mom taught me how to do it a long time ago so I tried figuring it out, or just remembering what she taught me but I was having a hard time. I went inside the gas station and asked the lady if she could help and she called this one guy and he was able to help me fill the air in all four tires.  It turns out I was actually deflating the tires.  Not gonna lie, I bet my mom was laughing in heaven at how funny I must have looked with my hair blowing all over the place and at my attempt to fix the situation.  I did learn in the end though, so I know for next time.  I feel my mom would've been proud of me for attempting to do it on my own though.    

My aunt's birthday was yesterday! 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUNT ESTELLE! 

{She really loved my presents!}

Wish me luck with trying new things and being fearless!

Stress with a side of overwhelming

Okay, so saturday was very long.  haha. that's what she said. Wow, am I tired.  But seriously, saturday was a very long DAY, but here's the good news....WE FINALLY GOT A CAR! This silver fox is a 2011 Kia Soul.

This is the car with the commercial with the adorable hamsters (I think they're hamsters) :  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ-CDE_r_wg [that's the video of the 2010 Soul though, but still you get the idea, and plus they are really adorable.]

But it was really crazy because we were out on a test drive with the guy that was trying to sell us the car and we saw two fire trucks and an ambulance pass us by, and like the little baby that I am I just starting crying.  My mom did too.  It was just like the accident played over in my head like a little movie, it was just horrible.  I remember catching my face on the window, crying and seeing panic in my eyes, wow, how I hated that day.  My mom was able to catch a glipse of the people in the 3 car accident, and so did my aunt, the people were standing and okay, there was a PT cruiser and other cars.   Btw, a few weeks ago I had this nightmare that my mom and I were in a car accident, we were in a PT cruiser, who knows why because we have never really cared for PT cruisers, but yeah and so the car flipped and we were in it.  The next thing I see is the ceiling of a hospital, my mom is okay and so I jump to see her up close but then we realize that there was this older lady that was kind of hurt, she had hit her head, and then I think I woke up after that. But...that's why the whole 3 car accident made me cry even more.  We came back to the dealership and my mom and I tried not to cry but it was just really hard.  We got back and everything just got better.  Now we are trying to figure insurance stuff that got messed up by the accident.  We are still very apprehensive about driving because of the accident. It's just aaahakdf;aksjf! but my mom has two doctors appts this week.  One with her primary and one with the ortho. oncologist, I hope she can get her splint off! (cross your fingers!) Other than that, school is still good, I wrote part of my first script today, that was seriously fun!
P.S. My mom cut the tie of the sales guy because that was his first sale! It was really nice. He was nice.  Oh also our silver fox was in the showroom, so they drove it out just for us! :]

I think that's it, until next time!
Thanks for reading!
Keep praying for mi madre!
:]

Asdfjk;l

My mom has her appt with her oncologist tomorrow, I'm really scared, just because, well I don't know.  I'm just really fidgety.  We are closer to getting a car, but I'm still scared of driving again.  We'll see how it goes.  This first semester in college is treating me very well (school-wise) but I'm just really stressed.  The cab driver that we've been using a few times, his mom had a biopsy, I hope she doesn't have this sucky disease.  He had the sucky disease, I think, or something close to it, so that he had to get chemo-ish medications. 
On a lighter note, next week in my mass communications class next week, wednesday to be exact, we will be having a halloween party, if we dress up we'll get extra credit, so...I'm planning on dressing up as...wait for it....AN ESCAPED TRAUMA PATIENT, ehh, isn't that creative? I have a class like right before this one so I needed to have something fast to change into.  So I have a hospital robe (that my mom got the day of the accident) and a sling, and a hospital bracelet.  It's gonna be amazing. Oooh, also I took this personality/career test thingy that is like really accurate, and I am an ENFP, (Myers-Briggs thing) I used to be an ESFJ, but I guess it wasn't supper accurate, anyway, and this other test thingy says that I am artistic and social :] So the councelor lady said that a good combination of major and minor would be...Major: Communication Arts (what I am majoring in right now) and Minor: Theatre Arts (which I've been thinking of minoring in :] Yepee.
Oh, also yesterday (this was seriously sucky) our first bus was running late, as soon as we got off the first bus we almost ran to try to catch the other bus, he saw us, the bus driver, and he saw my mom, WITH HER CANE, and BROKEN ARM trying to get to the bus, and me WAVING MY ARMS FRANTICALLY TO MAKE HIM STOP and just wait for like 10 seconds, and all he did was wave with his expression reading "No, I don't have time".  I mean seriously??? It just sucked really bad.

Well, that's pretty much the roller coaster of a week (so far) that I've had.
Thanks for reading.
Please pray my mom and I get good news tomorrow at her oncologist!

Looking forward

So Monday was pretty hard because I have 5 classes that day (and Wednesday) and it was my first day back after the accident.  I had sent emails to all my teachers telling them why I had been absent and it was amazing to see their responses.  All of them said that they would pray for my mom and me, which made me feel better.  My Intro to Mass Comm teacher gave me inspirational words, my philosophy teacher offered to help me if I needed anything, and my World Lit teacher gave me a hug, the rest of my teachers were very caring as well.  It makes me really happy to know that there are such good people out there in the world.

Apparently the car is totaled which was sad, but then my mom and I started to think about how our old car was well, getting old and maybe this was God's way of telling us to get a new car.  My mom's arm is much better and she is able to move better.  The only hard part now is just the emotional trauma of the accident.  Last night and today have been better, we haven't cried, and we are feeling much stronger but we still get scared being out on the road.  I flinch at the sight of a car too close but I'm working on it.  We should be getting a new car soon.  It's been hard to catch up on a couple of my classes but the weekend is just around the corner.  We are getting back to normal, slowly. 

I had to stop being a community member for orchestra because it was getting to be too much (after the accident), but I will return next semester.

Good news: Glee started last night! Grey's Anatomy and My Generation will start tomorrow! Today I was measured for our choir uniforms!

My mom is going to the oncologist tomorrow, then she'll get scans after that (next week) and then later she'll see the orthopaedic surgeon/oncologist way after that.

I am starting to get nervous about tomorrow because of the accident and her broken arm and the fact that maybe the cancer spread to her arm, but I am praying that it isn't spreading.  I try to focus on distracting things when I get this whole I'm-scared-about-my-mom's-cancer feeling and that's when TV shows come in.  (Part of the reason why I want to be a television producer).

Please pray for my momma!
Thanks for reading.

Overwhelmed

So yesterday was awful.  What was supposed to be just a doctor's appt turned into a nine hour stay at the hospital.  Although my mom's arm is doing better, yesterday sure didn't help.


My uncle helped us go to her doctor.  My mom got x-rays at the doctor's to see how her humerus is doing.  Apparently the humerus isn't totally connected.  The doctor suggested she go to the hospital because they have better equipment and he thought they would have to do surgery on my mom's humerus.  Of course this made my mom and me really scared because we really don't like surgeries, I personally think she's had too many (gallbladder removal, rathke's cleft cyst removal, mediport placements (2) and I think that's it), I just don't like her being "under the knife" it makes me really scared.  Anyway, so this nurse told us to go eat then head over the hospital because it would be a very long wait.


After eating, we went to the hospital and there was tons of people there.  Also, this hospital is a different one that we usually go to so it was a major change.  Fast forward three hours or so and she was in an ER room.  We ended waiting for long periods of time in between people coming in and out of her room.  We sat there, she kept repeating the horrible story about the accident.  The doctor's said that they don't know if there is cancer in her humerus and maybe that's why it was very brittle, or that maybe because of her chemo treatments making her bones very brittle (which is what I'd like to think).  That was overwhelming to hear. 


Closer to the end of her stay my mom had to get blood drawn, which because of her having skinny veins, cancer and not being allowed to drink much, was very VERY difficult.  It was horrible to see my mom in such pain,  it's moments like those that I really hate, because there is nothing I can do.  That is when I hit rock bottom.  I tried to keep her mind off of the pain, but she is the strongest, bravest person, and if she's crying she's really in pain.  It was awful. 


Fortunately, they didn't keep her overnight.  Here is the update: she has her oncologist appt this thursday, then she'll get blood drawn sometime after that, then CT scan, then her appt with the orthopaedic oncologist and then we'll see from there.  Oh and they are thinking that she won't have surgery because the bones will heal themselves. (good news! yey!)


About the car situation: the car is most likely not totaled, yey! (good news) 


Today was rough though.  I think that the more time passes the better. 
Another thing, I got scared because of my scar from my surgery on my back, it felt weird, but then my mom and I remembered what my dr said of how it would heal.  So now I'm not as freaked out.


Keep praying!
Thanks for reading.


This is a good song I've been listening to that pretty much explains how I feel: Hallelujah  by Jeff Buckley.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8AWFf7EAc4&ob=av2e

Getting there

Today was somewhat overwhelming.  We are no longer working with the lawyer, my mom got labwork done for her appt (next week) with the oncologist, we have a rental car (which I drove) and Pester, the kitten we were kitty-sitting is now back with Sylvia.  The hardest thing today was going to the Collision place and getting the rental car.
My mom and I had to get all of our things out of the car today because we still don't know if they will be able to fix the car or not.  As the guy drove us closer to our car, my heart just started beating a bazillion beats per minute, and I kept replaying the accident in my head again and again.  Once we saw the car it took a lot for me to not just break down, my mom stayed in the car while I emptied everything out of the car.  It was so hard because we were fine and then a huge red truck just came out of nowhere and changed everything.  It's weird to see how everything was just left like time had stood still.  Another thing that I kept wondering was that on tuesday (the day of the accident) my philosophy teacher let us out of class about 20 minutes earlier than when class was supposed to end.  I kept thinking "what if he would have let us out 20 minutes later? would we still have gotten in the accident?" Then I realized there is no use in thinking about the "What ifs" in life, everything happens for a reason, I still don't know the reason though. 
I took pictures of our car and it was all very sad.  The worst part of it though was getting out of the collision center and having to drive past all these cars that had been in accidents as well.  I started breathing heavily looking around on both sides and seeing rows and rows of messed up cars, it was a nightmare, except my mom and I were sure not dreaming.  It was awful.

Other than that, my mom and I are still trying to think positive and not think about the accident, we know it's a very stressful time and we are focusing on one day at a time.  She has a doctor's appt tomorrow, we will show him the x-rays and see what he has planned, and then he'll schedule an appt for her with an ortho. oncologist. 

I hope that each day will get easier.

Keep praying!
Thanks for reading.