My sleep study

Ugh. I'm supposed to be studying for pharm right now (test on Tuesday), but instead I literally spent about an hour watching youtube videos. There's this one particular chick that posts tons of "how to" videos of doing herself over to look like celebrities. And she's good. Like, really good. I watched her do makeovers on herself for Michael Jackson, Beyonce, Jennifer Lawrence, Angelina Jolie, and Scarlett Johansson just to name a few. Anyway check her out. Click here for awesomeness, but be warned, you may find yourself surfing her channel for a while.

Anyway, this weekend Adam went back home to help his parents install a new pool after their old one died not long ago. I decided to stay in Birmingham because I needed to study (which I really have done, I promise), and I had a sleep study this weekend that had been scheduled for months. Thus I stayed.

So yeah, this sleep study. It was an interesting experience to say the least. I showed up there Thursday night at 8pm and they showed me to my room. It was pretty much like a hotel room.

 After I signed some papers and picked out my breakfast for the morning, they started hooking me up to all sorts of stuff.

Sorry the pictures are a little dark. These things included:

• EEG (electroencephalogram),
• EMG (electromyogram) on my face and legs to detect motion and movement from facial twitches/grinding and restless leg,
• EOG (electro-oculogram) to detect rapid eye movement,
• 2-lead EKG,
• Two elastic bands around my chest and abdomen to determine the depth/effort of my breaths,
• A nasal cannula (not for oxygen, but to make sure I was breathing; it also had a little piece that hung down onto my top lip and was probably the most annoying thing out of all of this),
• A snore microphone which was another electrode affixed to my neck, and
• A pulse oximeter (which was actually really painful on my finger).

Every electrode on my body had this vaseline jelly underneath it (including the ones in my hair!) so I felt and looked gross, hence the uncombed hair look in the pictures above. After I was tucked in bed with everything plugged in (I was required to go to sleep by 10pm), they had me practice breathing with a nasal CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure machine) incase during the night I stopped breathing. Apparently if that happened, they'd rush into the room and put this thing on me.

So this was pretty strange. When they turned the machine on, the positive pressure made it feel difficult to exhale through my nose. Inhalation was extremely easy, which I suppose is the point. But for a short moment I panicked. It felt almost as if I was being suffocated. I "practiced" breathing with this for about 10 minutes; the tech promised me there was nothing in there except for air. After a while I got used to breathing with this and everything was fine. But then when she came back in the room, she turned the machine off before taking it off my face. That was almost as panick-inducing as putting it on my face because it literally sucked my breath away for a second. 

That night I slept terribly, of course. I woke up at 7am (thanks to the technician) with a headache and just felt super tired. They took all the equipment off of me except for the EEG, EKG, EOG, and the EMG electrodes on my face. I was much more comfortable this way. My sleep study continued over into Friday. Every 1.5 hours I had to lay down for 30 minutes and try to sleep. If I was unable to, they'd get me back up after 30 minutes, and then an hour and a half later, I'd try again. Not to my surprise, I wasn't able to sleep at all Friday. But I did study! They finally released me at 2:30pm. I was SOOOO happy to be out of there, take a shower, and sleep in my own bed.

As soon as I was released, I called my sister-in-law (she and the kids were in town again this week) and went over to the pool at their hotel. We had also hung out on Thursday before I had to go into the dreaded sleep study, and it was really nice to do something fun before being admitted for the night. Anyway, I hung out at the pool with them for a little while before they went home for the weekend. Love those babes!

Friday night Lindsay came over and we had such a fun girls night!! We drank lots of wine (I needed it after the experience I had just had), ordered pizza and watched Legally Blonde while eating popcorn. We kept laughing at each other about how well we were able to quote the movie. I mean I'm not really surprised. I only watched it like 394023 times in high school. But it's still been a looong time since we'd seen it.

Saturday night we did the exact same thing all over again, except this time it was the sequel to Legally Blonde: Red, White, and Blonde! :) Had so much fun with her! Of course I missed my Adam, but it was nice to just have a girls weekend.

Anyway, that catches me up to now. I've officially pushed studying off for another hour, so I really must get started now. Till next time. :)

Pin It

Unmarked weekend

So there was nothing particularly special about this weekend. Casey and Katie both went home, which was my first weekend in PA school without at least one of them! I definitely missed those girls! BUT Mallory and I studied together on Saturday and we got through an impressive amount of material ... or so we like to believe. There's still much more to do. Saturday when I was studying, Adam went with some of his work friends to the shooting range, which happens to be a) right by our house and b) very cheap. After we both got back home, I studied a tiny bit more, and then we watched the game.

Oh! How could I forget about this? Saturday morning when we woke up we found this mess on our patio.

Pumpkin guts.

There are a few things you should know before I continue with my story. First, Adam and I did not carve a pumpkin on the patio ... or anywhere else for that matter. Our pumpkin, which Adam bought just yesterday, is still in one piece on our kitchen table, waiting to be sliced open. The only other explanation is that this mess came from above. Second, this is not an isolated incident. Well, it is with the pumpkin guts, but it's not an isolated incident with other materials falling from the patio from above, namely candy wrappers, cigarette ashes, cigarette butts (!!!). This is not ok. Our friendly neighbors from above have also been known to yell obscenities during the wee hours of the morning, tromp around like freaking elephants, and to save the best for last, vomit over their patio rail. Adam and I do not enjoy watching it rain chyme. 

So, on this bright Saturday morning when we found the pumpkin guts all over our patio, I decided enough was enough. At 8:30 in the morning (while these particular people are sure to still be asleep -- I mean, they stay up so late, I'm sure they sleep in till 2pm), I went upstairs to their door and -- not knocked -- but banged on their door for about 5 minutes until someone answered. Adam told me to take a broom with me, so they could clean up the mess but I decided not to. I also felt kinda bad because I woke up a couple other neighbors as well :/ but finally someone did come to the door. 

Oh, pause the story. I forgot something else that's very important. Shortly after Adam moved into the apartment, we noticed pretty immediately the cigarette ash and butts falling from above. I decided to provide them with a ash tray and a kind note explaining that not only did I not enjoy having this on my patio, but also that it was a fire hazard (because of our patio furniture and pillows). Unfortunately my nice efforts were unappreciated, so we went to the office and complained to the staff about it. Apparently the people upstairs were chastised  and their behavior got a little better, but clearly since I'm still telling this story, it hasn't completely stopped.

Ok so back to me standing on the door step of the people upstairs. So as I was saying, someone finally answered the door. In the span of about 30 seconds, and starting with the pumpkin incident, I brought her attention to all of the things that have been frustrating me. She looked very scared and sorry (... and sleepy) but at the end of our one-sided conversation she told me to have a nice day. They've been pretty quiet since then. Maybe I made enough of an impression. All of this mess made me feel bad for anything we've done to the people below us. So I wrote them a nice note too. And they were thankful. :)

I'll give updates on that if anything further develops. But anyway, on Sunday Adam and I went to church and heard a great sermon about God's Will for our lives and then decided to have some good ole' Five Guys cheese burgers for lunch. Delicious. After we got back home everything else was pretty unmarked. I think I studied a little, did a little laundry .... yeah, I think that's pretty much it.

Now I'm sitting at school blogging instead of studying. But that's going to change right now. :) Until next week, folks!

Pin It

Things that make me happy

Here are a few things I've done this past weekend that have made me happy:

1. Had spiked hot chocolate with my love (even though it's really not cold enough).
2. Got an eye exam, which of course comes with a new pair of cute glasses.
3. Had a pinterest party with some of my school mates and BFFs. Here are some pics of our creations!

Here is Mallory's wreath!

And Casey's!

And mine!

And Katie's!

Casey also painted these pumpkins on her own time after she left, but the inspiration came from the party. ;)

I think they look FABULOUS! I decorated one pumpkin as well, but I have another to do so I'll post pictures of those later.

Anyway, on with the list ...

1. Ordered my new iphone 5, which won't be here for a few weeks, unfortunately.
2. Went to a sushi party with fun people ... apparently I'm a rock star at rolling sushi ... who knew?!
3. Made a fun Halloween Oreo cheesecake. Yuuummm.

All of these things have of course meant that I haven't studied much this weekend, so I spent my Sunday catching up. I definitely let it slip away from me more than I should have. :( BUT, it'll all be ok because a) I can do this, b) God wouldn't give me more than I can handle, c) I've made it this far because I'm meant to be here, and d) I can only take it one day at a time. I've been telling myself these things for a while. Now to just believe them.

Wooooooosaaaahhhhh ...

Here are some things that I have to look forward to in the next few weeks:

1. Picking up my cute new glasses.
2. Grey's Anatomy season premiere!!!
3. Getting my Clarisonic Mia in the mail! Did I already blog about this? My mother-in-law bought me one for my birthday, but luck of the draw, mine was a lemon. Story of my life -- alas. So I'm waiting for my new one and it should be here very soon!
4. Getting my new phone.
5. Our white coat ceremony/PA ball.

These lists should keep my spirits up for a little while, at least. :) Later friends!

Pin It

Picture frame mirror and other randomness

This project was actually not from pinterest! Although I'm sure this isn't an original idea by any means. And it's really not that spectacular of a project, but anyway ...

My mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law are known to bring home fun little knick-knacks /projects for us to work on. One of the last things my MIL brought home before we moved to the Ham was an old picture frame. At first, I didn't really think there was anything I could do with it. See, it wasn't even actually a traditionally sized picture frame that I could reuse with a family photo or something. It was actually a frame for some embroidered piece of cloth that had the names and pictures of several types of apples. I wish I had saved it so I could have posted a picture...oh well. But after thinking about it, (and Tammy may have actually suggested it, I can't remember) I decided to turn this into a mirror! So I once again called for my all-talented father and he ordered me a piece of mirror to fit. I'm not 100% certain where in our apartment this is going, but it will find a home! Here's a picture!

On to other randomness ...

Adam, the girls, and I are going home this weekend for a friend's wedding and I'm stoked! I haven't been home in about a month. I think this is the longest I've been away ... strange. I'm very ready!

While I'm home, Mom and I are gonna go shopping for clothes for PA school and once again, I'm VERY excited! New York & Co. has FANTASTIC sales this week and it's tax free weekend! Girls, you better go get some! The more we can save, the more we can spend. >:) Adam would kill me for saying that.

I actually went "pre-shopping" yesterday with my friend Casey, which is how I found out about all the awesome sales. (Funny story about her ... we went to high school together, and now we'll be in PA school together! Small world.) Anyway, one of the main reasons I needed to go shopping was pick up some new foundation at Sephora. I bought a whole bunch of Smashbox makeup for the wedding, and I don't wear foundation everyday, so I actually just ran out of it recently. As it turns out, Smashbox doesn't make my specific cream-to-powder foundation anymore. I did, however, find out that Urban Decay (what a dreadful name, BTW) carries a VERY similar product, so I was able to purchase that instead. WIN!

While we were at Sephora, Casey and I were briefed on a skin cleaning system called Clarisonic Mia. Casey had heard of it before but I hadn't. AND NOW I WANT ONE! After learning about it, I realized my friend Natalie had described a very similar product that she uses and it as it turns out, she actually uses this same one. I'm very interested in trying it for myself, so I'm adding it to my Christmas list. :) Here is a picture.

So, to give another update on my hummingbirds ... there are definitely two of them now! It was hard to tell in the beginning, but I'm pretty certain I was seeing the same bird over and over. Now there are two because I see them chasing each other around. This means I need TWO feeders! :)

Pin It

Quick update and a few thoughts ...

Quick update ... I've already seen two hummingbirds feeding at my feeder! I'm so excited! No pictures yet, though.

On a similar note, I've seen these "insects" flying around that have really stumped me, but I've only ever seen them flying around twice I think. It looks like a humming bird mixed with a butterfly and a bumble bee ... and a lobster. So I did a quick search and it turns out there's a new bug in town called a hummingbird moth.

I SWEAR I saw one of these things fly into a hole in the ground, but I haven't found anything about them living underground or laying eggs there. If you know anything more about these interesting little creatures, let me know!

~~~

I've developed an obsession with pink toile. I need to make SOMETHING out of this print. Not sure what it's going to be yet though. But in my searches, I did come across this.

It's a wastebasket. And it's $130. OBSURD.

Pin It