A Blast from the Past...

I stole this off a friends blog (thanks, McKell) and, although I never do these, I really just needed something fun after the day at work I have had. So, here is everything you wanted to know about me past, present and future....in five bullet points!

10 years ago, I was:

1) 19, but just a day from turning 20 (OMG...tomorrow I turn 30!)
2) Still dating Jeff (can you believe we have been together that long already?)
3) Starting my sophomore year at Saint Leo College
4) Researching graduate schools
5) Thinking about my future

5 things on today's "to do" list:

1) Finish mercury press release
2) Write Questions and Answers for mercury
3) Make dinner (if I have the energy after the day I've had)
4) Watch Monday night TV (How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men)
5) Imbibe in an alcoholic drink to RELAX.....tomorrow is going to be hell!

5 snacks that I enjoy:

1) Granola
2) Trail mix
3) Popcorn (especially from the movie theater)
4) Chips and salsa
5) Veggies and dip

5 things I would do if I were a millionaire:

1) Pay off my student loans
2) Take care of family on both sides
3) Pay off my second house in Toccoa...no more double house payments, baby!
4) Invest (maybe not in the market...especially after today :-} )
5) Renovate my kitchen....counters, backsplash, sink and tile floor

5 places I have lived:

1) Parrish, Florida
2) Saint Leo, Florida
3) Anderson, South Carolina
4) Toccoa, Georgia
5) West Jordan, Utah

5 jobs I have had:

1) OTC Clerk at Eckerds (thanks, Dad2)
2) Laboratory Assistant at Saint Leo
3) Wetlands intern for Sarasota County Government (where I almost stepped on an alligator)
4) Graduate Research Assistant at Clemson University
5) Toxicologist for the Utah Department of Health

Feel free to copy....I certainly did!

Chrissy's Ouchy Finger

On Wednesday, I was involved in a small work related accident. We were moving a large metal bookcase from the office and trying to put it on a cart when my finger was crushed between the bookcase and the cart. It immediately swelled up and throbbed most of the day. Someone at work (thanks, Mark!) was nice enough to go to the store and pick up a splint for it. As Wednesday wore on and I got home, the pain had subsided a little but the throbbing was excruciating.

Jeff asked me to go to the doctor and just have it checked, because it was bruised a nice purply black color and I couldn't bend the top two knucles. On Thursday I made an appointment and saw the doctor. The whole time I was thinking that she was going to tell me it was fine and to just go home, but I really felt that there was something wrong. I can't really explain it but it just didn't feel right. Anyway, the doctor was worried about my finger for a couple of reasons...first, she thinks that the bone may have been shattered during the crush. Secondly (and the one that scares me the most), she said that the finger is not getting good blood circulation. This is due to the fact that my other fingers were warm, but my index finger was cold. She wrote me two prescriptions (one for 800 mg of Mortin for pain and another to help me sleep at night) and wanted me to go get an X-ray.

I went on Friday morning to Insta-Care to get it X-rayed and am just waiting for the doctor to call with the results. I am hoping it is only broken and not shattered; if it is shattered, then I will have to go to an orthopedic surgeon! It is all too scary for me. But, my medicine is keeping me in a pretty mellow state (I am asleep about an hour after I take it), so the pain is not as noticeable. I will update everyone as soon as I get the results from the doctor.

Just let me say that you don't really think about how many things you use your index finger for until you can't use it anymore....dishes, buttoning pants, holding things...it is amazing how many things I have had a hard time doing lately. I guess I am lucky it wasn't the finger on my right hand, which would have been infinitely more difficult to manage. Thanks for your help, Jeff!

**UPDATE**

I just got a call from my doctor and (thankfully) my x-rays came back negative...no break, no fracture. Just soft tissue damage. Still, I am supposed to keep the splint on for a couple of days and then try to start working it again. Everyone is really relieved that I am all right. Thanks for all the concern...I appreciate it!

The daVinci Exhibit

For quite awhile now, I have been wanting to see the Leonardo daVinci exhibit at the Woodbury Art Museum in Orem. I am fascinated by all the inventions that he designed in addition to being an artist and a teacher. We have always had something else going on every weekend, so we never got around to going....but that all changed on Saturday. We drove to Orem and saw the exhibit...it was AWESOME (and not only because it was actually housed in the University Mall...wow, a cool exhibit AND shopping?...what more could a girl ask for?). They had over 50 replicas of designs that daVinci had invented...things you never would have thought would have come from him...tanks, the concept behind hoists and ball bearing drives, the parachute. Here are some pictures that I took throughout the exhibit.


The bridge is retractable, so that it could be deployed to move men across during times of war and then be retracted, to prevent the enemy from also getting across. It provided a cleaver escape!

daVinci was actually the first person to work with the concept of flight...he was fascinated by it and invented numerous prototypes for flight during his lifetime.

This was one of the first mechanical carts that could be steered. I guess it served its function, but it definitely doesn't look very fun to sit on! :-)

The parachute was by far my favorite invention...I think that it was such a neat concept and has definitely proven handy in recent times when crazy people jump out of planes!

Okay, now the first underwater mask scares me a little...it is supposed to help a person breathe underwater (the same way a scuba mask would); however, it looks a little frightening and claustrophobic to me. I don't think I could stand having something covering my head while I was underwater. And the noose thing is just freaky. Anyway, daVinci saw the evil that man could cause with this invention and later destroyed the design.

The tank was Jeff's favorite invention and I have to admit, it is a pretty neat idea. He created this round hut-shaped tank that had cannons all around the inside perimeter. It actually moved with cogs (he originally wanted to move it by horse, but thought better of having horses in the middle of a battle because they could get spooked too easily).

This device actually functioned as a water pump. As you turn the handle, the spiral shaped metal brings water from the bottom to the top.

There was so many inventions to see, but that was not all...they also had a room full of replica paintings by daVinci. These were the highlight of the entire exhibit!

It was a great exhibit and I was glad that we got to see it (it leaves Utah on October 2). I learned a lot and also got to walk around the mall...I even started my Christmas shopping! Overall, it was a nice (and productive) Saturday!

More Landscaping!

As if our weekend wasn't already packed full of fun, we decided not to rest on Sunday, but rather to landscape another bed in the back yard. The one we tackled was one I had been dreading for a while, due to the fact that it has seven large rose bushes in it. And let me tell you first hand, thorns from rose bushes really hurt. The beds were really gross as the people before us had planted plants, but never mulched or weeded, so there were some weeds almost as tall as the rose bushes themselves! This bed also spans almost the entire length of our back yard, so it was no easy task. As if that was not enough to work on, Jeff decided that the three sprinkler heads installed in that bed needed to be moved from the back of the bed to the front of the bed.

So, this is what the bed looked like early Sunday morning....

We decided to pull out all the remaining plants and shrubs that weren't rose bushes (as they were almost as large and starting to compete with the roses) and replace them with some smaller, ground cover plants. The rose bushes are spread far enough apart that I think it will look really nice with a ground cover between them.

Jeff got lucky again (after the Wii win on Saturday) and didn't have any trouble moving all the sprinklers to the front of the bed. Now, all the plants (and some of the grass) will get watered.

After about six hours working on the bed, it began to take shape. This is what the back bed looks like now....

Kira seemed to approve of the job after it was completed...

Now, we just need to work on getting the grass to grow back (damn grubs) and the yard will be totally revolutionized.

After we finished, we put more grass seed on the areas hit hardest by the grubs. No sooner had we finished, then we find Mr. Koda doing this...

No wonder we can't get grass to grow....Mr. Koda keeps eating it all!

After we chased him away from the seed, he ran over and started playing with Kira.

Such trouble, that little one!

DeltaValve Lagoon Fun Day

On Saturday, we went to Lagoon for Jeff's work fun day. It was great because we got free parking, free park tickets, free ice cream and they also rented out the Pioneer Pavillion for a BBQ for the employees and their families! We got there after lunch and rode all the roller coasters.

Jeff said that right after this picture was taken and I had begun to walk away, the spider spit out this deluge of water, soaking the poor couple walking underneath it. Too funny!

We really enjoyed Wicked, as it was a different coaster than we had ever been on. I also liked the Spider, because of the additional rotation of each car. It was weird to not be able to see where the coaster was going next!

We then rode the sky rail across the park to check out the other side. These are some of the shots I took while above the park.

Once safely on the other side, I had to take Jeff into Double Thunder Raceway as he LOVES anything having to do with cars. Once I saw what it was all about, I knew that Jeff HAD to drive the go kart. I was happy to just ride along and watch his face light up like a boy as he drove the go kart around the track.

It was a lot of fun, although I think next time we are going to do the drag racing. As we were exiting, we watched them race. It looked like so much fun!

We then just walked around the park and looked at all the old, historical homes that are part of Pioneer Village. It is amazing to me that people used to live and function in these homes...they were so small, usually with only a kitchen and a bedroom (and some of these families had no less than 10 kids)! I wondered where they all slept.

Thanks, but no thanks....I will keep my big house any day (and even that seems too small sometimes).

Around 6:00 we went back to the Pioneer Pavillion for Jeff's work family dinner. It was nice; the food was good and I got to meet a lot of the people that he spends all day with at work. After everyone ate, they had a raffle for 20 really cool prizes. They had Bose noise cancelling head phones, navigation systems, Bose docking stations with speakers for iPods, Golf bags, and portable DVD systems. They also had three "grand prizes"- two Nintendo Wii's and Rockband for Wii. These prizes were given away first. They called the first name out for the Wii and a lady won it. It was right after this that the funniest thing happened....I turned to Jeff and said "I want a Wii". No sooner had I said this then they pulled Jeff's name out for the second Wii. It was crazy! I was so excited!! Jeff was in shock, I think, as this is the picture I took after he won.

So we won a Wii! I cannot wait to hook it up and start playing. Not bad, for a day at the amusement park, huh? After we won the Wii, we were kinda limited on what we could ride on (the box was semi heavy) and everyone kept staring at the Wii and asking us where we had gotten it. It was about this time we felt the need to head home. Overall it was a fun and exciting day. Lagoon is no Disney World or Busch Gardens, but it is a neat little amusement park (especially on someone else's dime). Thanks DeltaValve (for the fun day andthe Wii)!

The Utah State Fair!

On Friday night Jeff and I decided to go to the state fair. We were both eager to see how a western fair compared to the fairs we grew up with in the south (and I was DYING for an elephant ear- more to come on that later)! Anyway, we walked around and looked at all the exhibits...floriculture, photography, quilting, jams, and ceramics. Of course, I took pictures of the penguin ceramics. They were adorable! They even had a sculpture made out of butter! The detailing was pretty intricate so I was impressed (and even more impressed that I got such a good picture through the glass).

Someone had entered this HUGE homemade pirate ship for kids to play on. It was incredible, although I don't think I would ever want anything this large in my yard. Jeff thought it was cool (and it was).

After that we walled the midway and compared rides to those we grew up with. It was funny to see some of the same rides that we rode as kids, only with different names.

The Midway

I thought "Moby Dick" was a strange name for this ride, being that there is no ocean anywhere near Utah...in Florida, we know it as the "Rainbow Express"

The "Thunder Bolt" is the "Himalaya" to us Floridians.

After that, we got some dinner (from Chile Verde) and washed it down with an elephant ear. Now, for those of you who have no idea what an elephant ear is, here is my best description of it...a fried piece of doughy goodness slathered with powdered sugar and cinnamon. They are staples at southern fairs and are not called anything but elephant ears. You go to the fair most times just to have an elephant ear. When I talked to people in Utah about them, I got a weird look, so my expectations of finding one on the midway were not high. But, luck was on my side because as we walked around, I found this sign...

So we stopped and I ordered one. Now, this is where things got a little out of control because after I ordered an elephant ear with cinnamon and sugar, the girl behind the counter tried repeatedly to talk me out of getting an elephant ear and into ordering something called "fry bread" because it was "softer" and "less expensive". I kept telling her that I knew what an elephant ear was; I came to the fair for an elephant ear and I was leaving with an elephant ear. Finally, Jeff had to get involved and be a bit more persistent to get my elephant ear. I left to sit down and cool off, while Jeff waited for the ear.
But, it was beautiful when it came out.


It was a really good elephant ear, even though the ordering process left me in a bit of a tizzy. Anyway, I must have really enjoyed it because I got the powdered sugar EVERYWHERE...on my jeans and all over my purse!

After that, I had had about enough of the state fair. In comparison, there were some advantages to the Manatee County fair. These included:

- More family friendly

- Larger variety of food

- Alcohol (we couldn't believe it....in Utah?)

However, there were also some disadvantages...

- Less rides, smaller than our county fair

- Not many shows (although there was an Elvis impersonation show going on while we eating)

- No carousel or merry-go-round (lame, that is a staple of all fairs)

- No haunted house

Overall, it was a fun night...although I am not ready to switch from elephant ears to fry bread any time soon.