Another allergy to another delicious food...

I became allergic to bananas when I was 14, and then also to pineapple when I was 20. Both are fruits I really love to eat because they're SO delicious. I'm kind of eating bananas again, though I don't eat large portions of them and it's usually cooked in something like banana bread or banana brownies.

So tonight I ate dinner as usual, nothing to concern me about what food we were eating. I went to take care of some cats for this lady that's out of town for the weekend, and on the way I noticed a bump on my left ring finger that started itching. I thought it was a mosquito bite at first, which wouldn't be any surprise to me. Then I also noticed one on my foot and the back of my neck too.

I make my way home and as I'm going about doing things, I start noticing that I'm just itching all over. I reach over to scratch my shoulder and the skin felt kind of odd underneath my shirt. I went into the bathroom pulled my collar over so I could see my shoulder. Here's what it looked like:

Then I pulled my shirt up in the back to see this:

I've never had hives before, ever in my life, but I knew that's what they were immediately. I ran downstairs and my mom ground up some oatmeal for me and found me some nice itch-relief lotions. I took a 20 minute oatmeal bath and then stood there staring at all the little bumps and welts in the mirror, doing all I could not to scratch them. The back of my neck is just on fire and it feel like it's spreading up to the rest of my scalp. I have a nice welt just under my left eyebrow and several on my hands and feet and legs. The bulk of it is on my chest and back though. It's so irritating!! I just wanna scratch everything!

Luckily, according to the American Medical Book, they should disappear in a few hours. I sure hope they do.

And I've been trying to figure out what caused it:
Not the cats I'm taking care of, I itched before that.

So what else? It must be the food I ate for dinner. But everything I ate was perfectly normal and stuff I eat pretty often. Then I realized, I must have developed another allergy. Not the the salad, not to pork and beans but to watermelon. WATERMELON!! Why??!?!!?

Sooner or later I'm just gonna have to start carrying around a bottle of Benedryl just so I can eat at all.

Watermelon. Seriously??

Will pray for work.

My summer has been really busy, which is slightly overwhelming and stressful at times. But the past week has been so much fun! I acquired a temporary job at the Busy Beads & Moore, which I wasn't planning on. One of the employees broke her foot a while back and needed surgery on it. She's supposed to stay off it for 6-8 weeks. They're also getting a new website going and they've got free tech support for a month. So another of the employees is on the computer working on the website all day and can't go work with customers in the store while she's in the midst of that. So Sylvia called me and asked if I'd like to work for a few weeks until Young Women's Camp and EFY. It's easier than training a brand new employee and having the others work overtime, plus I LOVE working there.

Back in January, we had a Relief Society sleepover and the theme had something to do with feet or footsteps, so everything involved feet in some way. It was a lot of fun. Before the sock puppet show, one of the ladies, Ryan, was trying to recruit someone to paint a back-drop for it. Nobody was jumping at the opportunity, so I said I'd do it. When Ryan saw how well I'd painted it, she got so excited and asked me to paint her daughter's room, immediately offering to pay me. I've never painted murals or anything of the sort before, so I warned her of that, but I agreed to do it. Well, I finally have found to the time to do it! So after work each day this week, I've gone over to Ryan's house and painted in her daughter's room. I love it! I could seriously make a living out of doing stuff like this!















Ryan also wants me to paint some palm trees in her son's room. She told a friend about it, and now she might want me to paint something similar in her house too. Anybody else want some murals done?

And, all my EFY paperwork is getting sent off tomorrow. It'll all be official finally and I'll be working three sessions of EFY!

This all goes to show that prayers really do get answered in the way that's best for each of us in our personal situations. When I came home from the mission, I was praying hat I'd get a job so I could keep busy and make some money before school in August. I had zero luck there for a while. But I was okay with that because it allowed me to travel a lot and have tons of freedom I otherwise wouldn't have had. I was still worried about the money issue and was still searching for a job. I'm sad that Heather had to break her foot for me to have a job, but the Lord sure did answer my prayers there! I've been getting desperate. And I seem to have this skill for painting that I never knew was so developed, and now I can use that to earn some extra cash for school too. If I had gotten a job at any of the places I'd applied earlier, waiting tables or managing a book store, I think I would have hated going to work every day. What a tender mercy it is for me to be able to go and make jewelry each morning, then go and paint each afternoon. I'm so grateful for my talents and abilities, as well as the opportunities the Lord has granted me to use them for both others' and my own benefit.

a 24-hour get-away

This past week I was feeling pretty down on myself. I can't exactly tell why, though I could speculate pretty well if I tried. Anyway, I decided to take a trip to clear my head. Originally I thought about going to Virginia Beach (i LOVE that place!), but a 14 hour drive one way and work on Monday just didn't seem like a good or logical idea. Then I thought about how much I love the mountains. That's what people did in times of old for peace and revelation--they went to the mountains. So I followed the example of several scriptural prophets and drove four and a half hours to the Great Smoky Mountains of Eastern Tennessee.

I didn't leave until about 5:30pm, which put me at the national park at 11:00pm. I forgot that it's in the eastern time zone until I got there and looked at my phone which had updated itself. The drive was nice, and I was probably fine after that. Four hours of blaring whatever music I wanted because I didn't have to worry about anybody's preference of music except myself, and I didn't have to worry about the volume bothering anyone else either. I yelled along with the lyrics to my Avril Lavigne album, I cried during my entire Goo-Goo Dolls CD, danced and had fun to my punk rock mixes, and felt rather fulfilled by the time I passed through Pigeon Forge. There was hardly anybody else on the road by that time, which was nice. I made it through a sobriety checkpoint without the cops thinking I was drunk (and I wasn't, of course), and I rolled the windows down as I drove through the woods and up a mountain in the dark.

I pulled into the camp ground parking lot at Cades Cove, and nothing was open. I found some parking spots away from all the other cars and pulled into one. I didn't feel much like setting a tent up in the dark, plus I was tired. So I cracked open all the windows, shimmied into the back seat of the Camry, rolled up a towel for a pillow and used my mission blanket for warmth when it got chilly during the night. I went to sleep really quickly. It was nice and quiet and I had no service on my cell phone. What else was I gonna do?

I had intended on sleeping until it got light outside. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. About 5:00am I woke up to some guy retching just outside my window. I came out of a dead-sleep, and wasn't sure if I'd heard correctly or was just dreaming. Then I heard him again. I immediately felt grossed out and lost whatever amount of appetite I had that early in the morning. I leaned up just enough to see out of my window. There was his car, parked right next to mine. It wasn't there when I went to sleep. Why was he all the way up in the mountains puking this early in the morning when he wasn't here late last night? Whatever. I plugged one ear and rolled over so the other was buried in my make-shift pillow and dozed off some more. I woke up a couple more times the same way, then finally I heard his car start and leave. Thank goodness. I sat up and looked at the time. 5:49am. It was just beginning to lighten up outside. I decided to find a spot to watch the sunrise. But I didn't dare get out of the car to find out what leftovers my neighbor had left around in the parking lot, so I drove around a bit to find a good trail.

On my way to find an outlook for the morning sun to break over top of, I suddenly realized just how badly I needed to use the bathroom. I laughed to myself as I recalled so many various men bragging and claiming "the world is my bathroom." I adopted that motto for myself this morning.

Then I finally was hungry. I found a nice rock to sit on by one of the trails I'd found, and took to eating the granola I'd brought with me (which, the Bear Naked Mango Agave Almond is delicious!) and read some from the Book of Mormon. It was so picturesque--there I was, sitting on a rock by a bubbling little stream, reading the scriptures in the silent, cool morning of the Smoky Mountains. Life could not have gotten any better.

I finished up, feeling entirely uplifted. It was like happiness was slowly soaking back into every cell of my body just by spending time in the middle of the mountains. As I continued walking, I found a place where a fire had apparently been. It was quite an interesting phenomenon. On one side of the path, everything was charred and dead and burnt, while the other side was lush and green and beautifully overgrown. I took a picture to try and capture the effect.




I continued driving and hiking around for the entire morning, enjoying every second of it.

I decided I want to live down a road that looks like this:

I don't know where I'll find a place like that to live, except in the middle of nowhere. But I am going to find a place similar enough one day where I can live and enjoy going out to visit with Mother Nature often.

I had to drive into Gatlinburg to gas up at one point and nearly gagged when I saw the gas prices there. $2.25 a gallon! In Clarksville it's $2.09. As I finished putting just enough gas in the tank to get me by, the screen on the pump read "Thank you for your business." I laughed out loud, and without thinking sarcastically said back "Thank you for eating my wallet!" Then I realized I was talking to an inanimate object and the guy at the other pump was staring at me. I just smiled and got in my car and left. I didn't care what anyone thought of me.

Aside from the outrageous prices there, I fell in love with Gatlinburg. It's a huge tourist spot, but it's such a beautiful little city. The architecture and old-fashioned designs of lots of the older buildings there just enthralled me. I drove down the same street four times just because I loved looking at everything so much. I could easily live in a place that looks like that and be completely happy my entire life. One day after I've saved up a huge wad of cash I'll take a real vacation to Gatlinburg.

My last destination before I decided I was ready to come back home was a place I'd been three years ago, almost exactly to the date. It's the highest point on the Appalachian Trail and the tower built there looks like something straight out of star wars. As I drove farther up the mountain toward Clingman's Dome, I suddenly found myself in a cloud. The last time I was there was like that too--so foggy I couldn't see more than maybe 50 feet in front of me. It's really cool, but I was kinda bummed out. I really wanted to see the view from the top of the mountain! As I walked back down I recognized where the walking path met up with the Appalachian Trail. When I made it back to the car, my hair was practically dripping wet because of how dense the fog was. I loved it!

On the drive back down there were patches of light where the sun was melting through the fog. Words can't describe what a beautiful experience it all was, being there and seeing and feeling what I did. What a refreshing and all around lovely experience! I'll have to do that from time to time when I get to feeling overloaded or unhappy. That was one of the most therapeutic things I've ever done. I know I love it, but I always seem to forget just how much I love the outdoors until I make it back there again...

search results yield unrelated points of interest

Yesterday I was going through some of my artwork and deciding what to put into my portfolio when I apply to the Industrial Design program at school. Bob shipped the art that was left in Utah to me here in Tennessee (which I'm super thankful for) and it should make it here tomorrow. Several of my art pieces aren't finished, mostly because I'm a perfectionist and I take forever making things look exactly how I want them. I don't want to put a bunch of half-finished pieces in my portfolio, so I'm hoping I can finish most of them before the end of June (since I'll have no time in July).

One is a sketch of a Renaissance (or maybe even Greek mythology style) statue, and I can't remember who originally made it or what the title of the piece is. So I've been looking around online for a few hours trying to find it, but with no luck.

I did, however, find some things that don't relate at all to what I'm currently trying to do. If you like random items of interest, read on.

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1. Zero Carbon House Project

"We have built a zero carbon house on Britain’s most northerly island of Unst, which will bring obvious benefits to the environment. Our carbon neutral home lowers the carbon footprint by producing its own energy and storing it to heat the home. We also use this energy to fuel an electric vehicle for transportation. Food will be grown in hi-tech greenhouses using a hydroponic growing system.

We hope our zero carbon house will be a useful study vehicle for research, giving students the unique opportunity to view a real eco-house, meet the people who live there, and regularly access the energy usage data that will be updated daily online. We also hope that we make a small contribution to conserving the environment in which we live for future generations to enjoy."

http://www.zerocarbonhouse.com/Home.aspx

2. Bruce Lee was the master.

3. A bridge that ain't just a bridge.

	Photography: © John Offenbach for stocklandmartel.com

The latest cultural adornment to a 2.1-million-square-foot mixed-use development in the Paddington region of West London is a pedestrian bridge that’s as much mobile sculpture as engineered structure. Spanning the mouth of a small dock off the Grand Union canal, the Rolling Bridge rests steady for foot traffic, but opens for boat navigation by curling upward and onto its one fixed support, like a scorpion’s tail. The 39.4-foot-long bridge, which has a steel frame and timber deck, was designed by Thomas Heatherwick Studio of London.

The structural metamorphosis from footpath to wheel has become a weekly spectacle for passersby since the bridge’s inauguration in September. The feat occurs more often when needed for navigation. “We think it’s fantastic,” says Mike Rayner, an official with Chelsfield, Paddington’s lead developer, which commissioned Heatherwick for the project.

Set among a number of Modern, understated buildings, the bridge was detailed “seriously and maturely” and is “almost boring” under normal use, says Stuart Wood, a project designer. “That heightens the element of surprise when it starts to do its action. There is a strong element of theater.”

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In other news, I'm officially accepted to work EFY in San Antonio and Bowling Green, KY. I'm going to be a Stake Leader at Girls Camp in June. I'm working at the bead shop again for a month or so. I'm about to get to work painting a basic mural in some one's house. I've been debating whether or not I should attempt to build a window seat and then photograph that to put in my portfolio as well. The only problem is time. I never have enough of it.

Vacation success; vacation sickness.

I flew out to Utah for three weeks. I stayed at Russ and Ashley's house, sleeping on the couch, though I feel like I hardly saw them at all with everything else I was trying to do and take care of during my time here.

I did my first triathlon, I visited a friend in Nevada and made a little cash during those four days, I worked out getting my old job back in August, I took another career test, I met with my academic advisor a couple of times, I changed majors and I'm finally working on my application for my study of choice within BYU, my relationship with Bob has just gotten better every day, and I've seen several old mission friends and companions.

However, I haven't yet found a place to live in the fall. I've looked and everybody seems to have space for spring/summer, but none for fall/winter. How stupid. Okay, it's really just irritating. I'm also being kind of picky. I'm tired of apartment complexes and I'd like to live in a house or duplex with some other girls. That's the part that's making it so difficult. I guess I'll settle for an apartment again if I don't have any luck by August. If anybody has any leads on women's housing, let me know.

And I couldn't have a perfect vacation. I never can. I've had this lingering cold for over a month now, and every time I think I'm getting better, I discover that I'm not. I get these coughing attacks, sinus headaches, and I get unpredictably runny noses. Sunday morning I woke up feeling a bit more groggy than usual. I went back to sleep (thank goodness church doesn't start here until 12:45pm) and woke up later, still feeling a little worse than usual. I had one of those sinus headaches, I felt drained, I had no energy, and my inner right ear was feeling just a bit sore. I got ready for church and didn't think much of it, because my body has just been doing weird things lately. I walked over to Bob's house and sank onto his couch waiting for him to finish getting ready for church. I wasn't feeling any better since I'd woken up. I actually noticed myself feeling worse. But I put on a smile and we went to church. The meetings were great and my spirits were uplifted, but my headache had gotten worse and the pain in my ear was also much worse. Then my menstrual cramps hit, to top it all off. We made it back to Bob's house and I curled up on the couch. I didn't move at all for a few hours except to call my mom about a remedy for my ear (garlic oil dropped into my ears every two hours). Then a friend of mine stopped by, and I acted as happy and perky as I could until he left. As soon as I closed the door behind him I curled back up into a miserable ball on the couch and didn't move at all for another few hours.

Bob was sweet. He made me dinner. He got me Tylenol. He got me a pillow and a blanket so I'd be more comfortable. He made an emergency run to the store on his bike for tampons and the things I needed for my ear. He looked up reflexology online and found all the different points on my hands and feet to massage in hopes that it would alleviate some of my cramps and other pains (and it did!). He rubbed my feet until I fell asleep. I was completely out, exhausted from all the various pains I was feeling. Then he didn't know what to do, because he didn't want to wake me up, but it was late and girls aren't supposed to sleep over. He tried to wake me enough to leave, but I guess I wasn't having any of it. He called Ben (which I think I suggested because I didn't want everybody worrying about me) and told him what was up, that I was sick and miserable and completely out on his couch....

I woke up around 8-ish this morning, still curled up on Bob's couch and slightly confused at first. After remembering yesterday, I felt bad because I completely broke the rules. But I'll admit, it was nice to wake up to quiet, especially with my painful ears. I'm usually a happy morning person, and I love waking up to my nephews excitedly pointing at me when they see that I'm awake, then coming and giving me hugs. I'm just not sure how pleasant I would have been this morning.

Bob made me breakfast, rubbed my feet more, and I finally started to feel a bit better. My ears are still pretty tender, but the cramps aren't nearly as severe, and the headache is almost all gone.

Now I get to fly home tomorrow. I get the impression that it might be pretty painful unless that garlic oil really kicks in today. I might get a blessing tonight if I'm not doing much better than I am now. We'll see...