My Month of June

WARNING: this post is rather lengthy.
I haven't posted in a while, again, but this time I have a legitimate excuse: on Father's Day I had to have an appendectomy.  I'm feeling much better now but for a while the thought of sitting up at a computer exhausted me.  I stayed "connected" via phone for a while because I could look at it laying down. 
 I am fortunate at how all this appendix stuff went down, although it did put a cramp in some of my plans.  Cory and I went to the beach with my family and would have stayed until Father's Day but I had my high school 10 year reunion planned for the Saturday before so we came home 2 days early.  On Friday night I went to bed at about 1 AM worried/stressed about something and I woke up at 3AM with a super bad stomach ache.  I couldn't go back to sleep and thought that I had finally pushed myself to the limit with stress that I had caused a stomach ulcer.  The pain was at the top of my abdomen and I had had a feeling like that before when I was stressed so I thought it would just go away.  I went to the class picnic but was still in pain and had to stay seated the majority of the time.  After the picnic, I took some Tums and a little nap so I could go to the actual reunion at 7.  I woke up still hurting but decided to go on anyway. Cory and I were not there but about 30 minutes when I realized that the pain was not going to let up and that I needed to go to the emergency room.  I really hated to leave the reunion because I had been looking forward to it.  I saw one of my good friends, who is a nurse, as I was leaving and told her about my condition.  She said it sounded like my appendix and to go to the hospital so they could give me a CT scan.  
Cory and I got to the ER at about 8:00pm.  We sat in the waiting room until 11:00pm and by that time the pain had shifted down lower.  The nurse explained that I needed to get an x-ray and a blood sample.  If you know me well, taking blood or getting shots totally grosses me out.  I'm such a big squeamish baby and have been ever since I can remember.  I tried to negotiate the drawing of the blood and begged them to give me an x-ray first and to rule out that it was just gas (which I was praying was the case) but it didn't work.  She told me that if my white blood count was elevated that it could mean that I needed my appendix out.  We did the tests and waited for a few hours. At about 2:00 AM the doctor came in and told me that my blood looked fine but I had a bladder infection, which he said wouldn't cause the pain I was having, but maybe it was stress so he gave me medicine for the abdominal pain and for the infection.
The next day was Sunday and Cory & I were supposed to teach Sunday School.  Since I had such a sleepless night before and still felt bad, Cory went on to teach by himself.  As I laid in bed that day I had the worst pain I have ever experienced.  I was literally screaming and begging God for relief. Cory didn't stay for the service and came home to be with me.  I was moaning and groaning and I knew he thought I was being dramatic but I was in so much pain.  I couldn't stand up straight to save my life.  He kept offering to take me back to the hospital but I didn't want to go back and wait for FOREVER just for them to tell me it's a bladder infection.  My temperature went up and the pain got so bad that I finally told Cory to take me to the ER.  I made him go back to the same hospital so they maybe wouldn't have to take blood again.  My friend who's a nurse told me what to put on the form at the hospital and they sent me straight back.  Again, we had to do blood testing and this time a CT scan.  The nurse informed me that my white blood count was actually elevated on Saturday night.  After the CT scan they said it was definitely appendicitis. I was so upset that the doctor had misinformed me that night before.  I was also super scared because I didn't want to have surgery.
Fortunately Cory was there, my parents made it in from the beach, my mother-in-law came, and best friend showed up right before they rolled me down to surgery.  Having my loved ones there really calmed my nerves.  I told Cory to sue the doctor that misdiagnosed me if I didn't make it....I'm a little over dramatic.
I made it out of surgery fine and had a room full of friends and family who had showed up during the surgery.
I thought I was so fortunate that the appendix didn't rupture and kept telling people who visited or called that.  The doctor kept me in the hospital for 3 days and I had a drainage bag attached to me that they kept checking.  Apparently my appendix did start to rupture so I had an infection and that is why they kept me for so long.  My family didn't want me to worry, because I would, so they didn't let me in on that little fact.
Cory and my mom were sweet to stay by my side the following days and I am finally back on my feet and feeling more normal.  I really appreciate the calls, visits, dinners, and texts checking on me.  So, that's the reason I've been MIA lately.
On a crazy note, my sister had to get her appendix out on Wednesday.  I thought it was a joke at first.  I guess we have a strong bond. :)  Fortunately, they caught hers before it started to rupture and she was out of the hospital by the next day.  She's much tougher than me.

All of this medical stuff made me remember a crazy website that one of my students showed me last year.  It's a virtual surgery interactive game where you get walked through the steps of certain surgeries and you perform them.  I can only bring myself to doing the dental stuff and tattoo removal but if you're brave you should try and do a c-section or a tonsillectomy.  Check out the weird site here .

5 Years Ago

Five years ago today this picture was taken and I didn't think life could get any better.  Boy, I was wrong, it gets better everyday when you're with the person you're meant to be with.  Happy Anniversary, my love. I'll leave the sappy, profession-of-love message for your card, because, let's be honest, people probably don't care to read about that. :)
Enjoy your weekend.  We are off to the beach!  Whoo-hoo!

Small Changes

I was looking through my camera tonight and found some pictures of some small changes that have occurred at the King house.  The first small change is that we put a mirror up in our room.  This actually happened in January.  My mom found an old white plastic framed mirror in a pile of junk from a neighbor's yard and thought we could fix it up.  It had some bars attached to it and was a bit dirty but we cleaned it up and spray painted it gold.  It's an older mirror that has some flaws and streaks on the glass, but I love it!  It adds some character.  We hung the mirror in between the doors to the bathroom and closet and above the little blue chest that I painted a while back.  (sorry I didn't have a good "before" shot)

Another change that has been made for months now, is that I finally repainted my first furniture project.  I don't think I've blogged about it before, but the cabinet below was purchased when I was in 11th grade and was pale yellow with some smoke damage.  It had been in a house fire and I remember getting a great deal. Anyway, it was my first furniture project and it has been in need of fix-up for a while.  Here it is before.

 Cory, of course, helped with painting. I stripped the old paint off of the top of the piece and sanded it down so we could stain it.  Now this piece is in our living room.  Eventually I hope to put a television on it but for now it displays some plants and stuff.

Here's a close up of the top of the chest.

And another change is that we finally have some furniture in the living room.  Cory and I bought these two chairs at an antique store a few months ago for a steal.  We will eventually recover them (you can see some fabric swatches on the chair on the right) but for now they are green velvet.  We're still in search for the perfect sofa.  One day we will furnish the entire room (hopefully). 

That's all of the small changes I had on my camera tonight.  I hope everyone is enjoying the start of their summer.  Have a blessed day!

My Classroom

Well, so much for trying to post something at least once a week, huh?  :) I actually was going to post our sun room pictures weeks ago, but the power went out as I was uploading pictures and I didn't have the desire to get back on here for a while after that.  

Anyway, school is officially out and I couldn't be happier!  I am welcoming this summer with open arms and I think it's safe to say that I will be able to continue teaching at the high school next year.  This year has been very trying and overwhelming at times but I have learned a lot.  I am especially excited about this summer because I will (hopefully) be able to relax and enjoy each day.  Last summer not only were Cory & I working on our house but I was also having to fix up my new classroom.  

I realized I never posted pictures of my room on here.  I have a few before and afters that I wanted to share, along with an awkward story.  Be warned that you may think I'm an awful person after reading this post.

Last May I was super excited to see my new high school classroom.  I was privileged to have the chance of meeting the sweet teacher that was retiring from the position and for her to show me around and give me some tips.     

Here are some pictures of the room the first day I saw it.

As you can see, there was a "beach theme" going on.  I wasn't crazy about it, but it wasn't so bad.  I took some other pictures of the room but these show the parts that I wasn't so crazy about.  The former teacher explained to me that her students painted the cabinets as a project.  I noticed people had signed their paintings with their graduation year and realized that they were 10 years old.  I was glad that if I painted over the doors that the old teacher wouldn't be offended that I went over her work and also that the students who painted the pictures were long gone.

We then went into the sewing room which is through the door on the right in the picture above.

That's when I saw this:

and this:

 Some sponge painted cabinets

Looking back, the pictures may not seem so bad, but in real life the room looked silly to me. Painting on cabinets (in the other room) was one thing, but covering the wall was a little overwhelming.  My first thought was, "I'm definitely painting this whole room first thing." That is until the former teacher took me over to a laminated newspaper clipping that explained the reason behind this room's design. 

 Apparently there was a student who would doodle instead of paying attention in class back in 2002.  There was a student teacher at the time and she decided to motivate this particular student to design a mural for the room and the class would paint it as an interior design project.  Well, this boy designed a hot air balloon theme and actually started painting a balloon.  One day during this project the boy skipped school and then was killed in a wreck.  The class was sad about their loss but decided to finish the room and complete the one balloon that the boy had started on in his memory.

Ok, so after I heard that I knew I couldn't paint over the mural...at least not my first year here.  (side note: I did paint over the beach things in the other room)

During the first semester my class only used the sewing room for about 3 weeks so it wasn't so bad. The class was mostly guys who didn't even notice the tacky walls. Then fast forward to spring semester when I had a fashion class that was full of girls.  We used the sewing lab quite a bit and by February students started feeling more comfortable with me and began making fun of the walls in the room.  They asked if they could paint over the walls.  That's when I started really toying with the idea.  Now, I had complete permission to make any changes to my room that I wanted to. I debated on the subject for a while. I asked other teachers' opinions and they said to go for it. Some of them didn't even know about the room and others could barely recollect the newspaper article and so on.  I asked one of the custodians who was actually in that class and he gave me the "go ahead".  Then I told my students the situation and we had a vote.  Only one student thought that we shouldn't and that was because she was afraid that a ghost would haunt the room.  Since the students didn't know the story before, the teachers were ok with it, and NOBODY had come back to school to see their artwork, I figured it would be alright.  My students and I did decide to keep the balloon that the boy started painting but to cover it up somehow.  So, this is what we did:

I bought some colorful fabric and had the students pick out sewing icons to paint on them like a canvas.  Then my sweet Cory built some frames to attach the fabric to.  The pink picture is the one covering the balloon that's still there.  I tried to type that on the picture but you can't read it well.

Yes, the scissors pictures has fallen down, and yes, the one girl who was afraid of a ghost claims that's the reason.  Ironically, or should I say suspiciously, she sits at the machine right in front of it.  I put the frames up with command strips and just haven't gotten around to get more to put it back up.

 The once blue sponge painted cabinet doors got painted white.  Also the orange tables got painted gray.

The green bookshelf got a neutral paint job.  Please excuse the unorganized shelf.  I snapped the picture quickly.  And yes, those are Barbie dolls who have costumed designed outfits on. ;)

The next project will be to recover the stools with the blue & green fabric.  It was free fabric and is in better condition than the red gingham. 

So, that's my sewing room now.  You probably think I'm awful for painting over the mural.  You also may remember that I said I had an awkward story to tell.  Well, just a week after the room re-do I get a call on my classroom phone.  I answer and the secretary asked me if I had some balloons painted on the walls in my room.  She didn't know that I was painting in my room but some other teachers knew that I was worried/hesitant about painting so I quickly thought that I was being "punked" and looked around for Ashton Kutcher or at least another teacher who would be laughing at my expense.  I slowly answered, "Yes, I have one balloon painted....Why do you ask?"  Then she said, "There's a mother here whose kid painted part of it and she wants to come and take pictures." Really?!  I told the secretary to send her down and I open the door to see a sweet, small lady who was smiling big with a few teeth missing.  She introduced herself as the mom of the boy who died in the car wreck!  Yes, friends, this is my life.  I quickly apologized before taking her to the room and explained that I had JUST painted over everything except for the one balloon that her son had painted.  She came in the room and assured me that it was ok.  She said that she was afraid that it had been painted over already but that the Lord had told her to come and take a picture of it one more time....I guess she just got the message a little late.  She was coming to take pictures because her other pictures were taken with a disposable camera years ago and now she had a digital camera and she could make better pictures.  She was wanting to make a collage of pictures of him for the 10 year anniversary of his death. If you know me well, you know that I was apologizing over and over.  She was so sweet and so appreciative that I had saved his balloon.  She gave me permission to paint over his balloon now, but I'm not going to.  I also gave her my pictures that I had taken.  I just find it to be my luck that she would come after YEARS of nobody wanting to see the mural and the week after I finally broke down and painted over most of it.
I hope everyone has a pleasant week.  Maybe I can get back into the swing of things since it is SUMMER VACATION NOW!!

Thank You

Thank you to those of you who prayed for me a week ago for my prom stress.  Things went great and my anxiety really did go away.  And to the people I came in contact with that week, thank you for your encouraging words.  :)
Last weekend we celebrated our 1 year house anniversary.  I can't believe we have been here a year already!
That's it. I still have house posts to do, but this is all I have tonight. :)
Have a happy week!

Side note: Cory & I are watching American Funniest Videos and it's making me mad.  Babies(or anyone for that matter) puking/spitting up is not funny on any level.  Why do they show that and, more importantly, why do people send that in?  I wish they would put a warning before they showed those videos...sorry for the rant.

ANOTHER side note that I just saw: Florence, AL made the The Huffington Post "Top 11 American Small Towns".  Check it out here

My Night

Warning: this is not a great post.  I'm just trying to stay current and post something at least once a week.
Tonight while I was shopping for groceries I discovered these gems:


Yes, it is Triple Double Oreos.  They probably have been around for a while but I just now found them.  Of course I had to purchase them to try them out.  I'm apparently a glutton and have no self-control because moments after I put the cookies in my cart I found the Easter candy aisle and saw my beloved Cadburry Eggs and Reese eggs and had to grab some of those too (they won't be back for a year!)...and I wonder why I can't lose weight.  Don't worry, I bought real & healthy food tonight as well. :)
I was so happy about my find and couldn't wait to tell Cory about my trip to the store but when I pulled into my driveway my mood totally changed. I saw the animal that I loathe the most: an *armadillo! I have never seen a live one and I must say it did NOT change my opinion of them.  If any thing, I dislike them more because it didn't even care to run away when I pulled up.  Like it felt like it had the right to hang out in my yard.  Of course, I called Cory to come and rescue me, hoping that when he came out it would run away.  Wrong!  It just waddled around like it owned the place.  Not until Cory shone the flashlight on it did it go off into the woods.  I really don't like that it's hanging out in my bushes...grr.
* I also really dislike opossums too, but in a list of awful animals, armadillos top the list.
See? This is a pretty lame post.  If you have read to this point then you rock!  Also, would you please do me a favor and pray that I make it through this week?  I'm in charge of prom this Saturday and I'm nervous/stressed about things.  I know that people have much bigger problems than this and this isn't a huge deal but since this is my first year at the high school I really want this to be great.  I would really appreciate it. :)  Thanks!

Also, Happy Birthday to my sweet 4 year old niece, Kate!  I can't believe she'll be four tomorrow.  It seems like only yesterday we were waiting for her to arrive.

Spring Break=Yard Work

This week has been my spring break from school and I have enjoyed it SO much.  I have gotten many things accomplished, one of them being cleaning up our yard.  

Here's a picture of our house right after we closed last April.  

Here's a picture taken last Saturday.

We had some large boxwoods on either side of our porch that, although large, were not very healthy.  Up close they were scraggly and needed some love.  We decided to cut them back a bit and hope they grow back nicely.  Right now they look kind of sad. haha

As you may notice, there's a gap between some bushes.  This gap has bothered me from day one of owning our house.  At first I thought that shrubs once grew in the gap, but from all the old drawings and house plans that we have found, there has never been anything growing in this space.

So we plated 5 Wintergreen Boxwoods in the empty space.  (From the street you can only see two of them.)

It makes Cory & me laugh, but the small bushes were cheaper.  Hopefully they'll grow a lot this summer.  We have been mulching around our house as well.

In September we got rid of some dying boxwoods by our porch and planted some Hawthorne bushes.  They are now blooming and so nice.  Our shrub beds are lined with monkey grass up until where the large bushes used to be so on Saturday we planted some monkey grass to continue the edging.

Oh, and this is not yard related, but I got a new doormat and I think it's cute.  So here's a picture of it.

This is the side of our house where monkey grass had grown everywhere.

Here it is now.  Our azaleas need a little loving after this season too.  Their blooms are beautiful now, but their leaves aren't growing.

This is my favorite spot outside of our house.  I love the little iron gate with the ivy growing up on post.

This is to the right after entering the gate.

We added some monkey grass and mulch to clean it up and make it more defined.

Here's a shot of the back of our house.

We have(had) some scraggly bushes back here too!

They were getting too tall so we chopped the down.  Hopefully they'll grow back!

We had lots of things growing right here.

 We had some neat ferns but they kinda took over so we took them out.

 Here's a shot after we butchered those bushes.

Mom got Cory & me some little stepping stones with a crown (for King) and a "K" on them that we used to make a mini-path to our backyard's water faucet.

The back patio is not in great shape.  The tiles are breaking and coming loose in some spots.  We'll eventually redo the whole thing but for now we just cleaned it.

Here's a dogwood tree in the corner of our yard.  I love the pink blooms!  We had to cut a large branch off of it because it was dead.  

It looks naked now!  The pretty pink blooms are still on top, I just didn't get it in my picture.  Eventually we would like to put a bench or something to sit on in this spot under the tree. We also are going to plant some flowers in this bed at some point.

And here's the other gate on the other side of our yard.

You can't really tell but there were TONS of dead oak leaves all over our yard.  They were piled up in crevices around the fence and monkey grass borders.  

I can't even remember how many loads of leaves we dumped in the woods that day.  It made a big improvement, though.

This is a before shot but I thought I'd add it anyway.

While it's not a huge yard transformation, it's a step in a good direction.  I just wanted to post our progress and let you see what our backyard looks like. :)  

I have enjoyed working outside with Cory on this project but I must say, I'm glad it's over.  I don't think I am made to work outdoors for long because during this experience I have gotten poison ivy, bark in my eye (it took forever to get out and hurt very bad), chased by a few bees...seriously, got scared by 2 frogs that were snake-like, and found a tick crawling on me.  Yep, I'm a wuss.