Its all fun and games until somebody gets prediabetes

It's time again for my workplace's annual health screening. In the last 2 years, my cholesterol has dropped exactly 50 points. My HDL is up. My triglycerides could not be lower. And my hemoglobin A1C came back at 5.7. Excuse me? What?
Now, the HgBA1C is kind of a new test, so let me explain. LESS than 5.7 means you are just fine. 5.7-6.4 means you are "prediabetic". Greater than 6.4 is diabetic. And >8 is an out-of-control diabetic.
It's an average of how much glucose your red blood cells have been bathing in for the last three months. They tend to hang on to it.
I used to think this test was the bomb. It wasn't supposed to come back like this.
Now, I happen to know my fasting blood sugar is usually 82. I also know that a pre-diabetic fasting blood sugar is 100-125.
I also know that, based on my "elf" tendencies discussed earlier this year, I prefer sugar to food. Generally always. Like the tray of rice krispie treats with chocolate chips in them I put away for breakfast and lunch last week.
Even an awesome pancreas can't hide the fact that sometimes I treat my red blood cells to a sugar bath at least a couple times a month.
Today I ate a piece of peanut butter and jelly toast with pomegranate seeds instead of jelly.
And a whole wheat gyro with a side salad of tabouuleh.
And did not eat any "yogurtland"
And I'm about to go enjoy some salmon and a nice caprese salad.
Ahhh....life as a "no I am not prediabetic but I'll keep telling myself this if it keeps me out of a sugar coma."
Oh, and I ran 2 miles.
p.s. If my insurance reads this blog post, I'm gonna be so pissed....

Snack Pack Anyone?

Last Friday night I went on a date with a guy from my ward. It was my first formal "first date" in quite awhile, but it was awesome, and we totally had a great time.
First off, we went to sushi at a place that serves everything on a conveyor belt, so if it looks good, you grab it. They charge you by what color of plate it's on at the end. I felt like I ate so much, but it was totally delicious and very fun. (That stack of plates, by the way, is not mine. They belong to the random dude who got his arm in the picture. I ate a lot. Not quite THAT much.)
The sushi was great, but I grabbed "Today's Special" which was conchi. I have since googled this and determined that it must have been meat from a conch shell. I will tell you this: it was the worst thing I have ever ever eaten as far as I can remember. I almost could not swallow it. Consider this your warning- do not eat this stuff!!
But my favorite part of the restaurant was absolutely this:

Just in case you need a snack pack to go with your sushi, it's there for your enjoyment. I laughed every time it came around. And then I ate some cream puffs.

Part of That World....

I think all of you know me enough by now to know that I do not have a particularly remarkable singing voice. That may be an understatement.
I once was told by a boy that I had a nice singing voice. Candice said he was lying because he liked me.
Emily Inglet once asked in awe how I could be so dang good at singing Alice in Chains when I was so bad at singing hymns in church.
Vanie, however, did, say I was an awesome karaoke-er.
And RockBand totally thinks I can sing.
Did I mention taking a month of voice lessons is on my list of 100 things to do in 1001 days? I thought I didn't have time. I thought I couldn't find a teacher.
This is my teacher:

Her name is Emily Williams. She teaches at the Mesa Arts Center and you get 7 private lessons for about $100. So I signed up. And on Saturdays at 1:00, I can be heard singing louder and better than I ever have before. In a room with only 2 people and a piano.
And now I know how to warm up my voice and I sing "Part of Your World" and "Angels We Have Heard on High," and it is much much better than before.
I won't be singing any solos in church. And I'm not trying to compete with my sister's awe-inspiring incredible voice.
But at least I have a glimpse into that crazy music world. And it's been really fun :-)

Thanksgiving at Home

So Thanksgiving at my home involved was on the Saturday night BEFORE Thanksgiving and only included the people who mean the most to me:
Vanie
Taylor, new 18 year old roommate
Kaitlyn, new 21 year old roommate
Xavier, 21-year old roommate's fiancee

John
and of course, my beloved brother Brad. I was there, too.
This year I had a fabulous idea. SELF magazine had published these 6 healthy and fabulous side dishes. So everyone was assigned two recipes while I made Rachel Ray Turkey Cutlets Parmagiano, the only turkey I still have ever made. Kaitlyn opted to make her own mashed potato recipe. Taylor made chocolate cream pie. EXCEPT that....this was Taylor's first time cooking it away from home. The instructions read, "cream together sugar and butter until sugar is dissolved." Taylor thought to herself, "Well the only way to get sugar to dissolve properly is to boil it." Which means, we drank the chocolate cream pie because, even after 9 hours in the fridge and 1 hour in the freezer, boiled sugar does not set. It was still delicious (just like her mom's was the week after!).

Brad did an awesome job on green beans with blackened sage and hazelnuts. AND pomegranate pear stuffing.
John rocked Butternut squash with cherries and apples (even though it took at least twice as long to cook as the recipe said it was supposed to....)
Vanie made awesome sweet potato biscuits and cherry cranberry sauce (the biscuits weren't whole wheat, but whole wheat biscuit mix does not exist in this state!)



Here's everyone with their masterpieces. I'm so grateful for good friends who humor me in this craziness!


(Real Thanksgiving was spent at our former bishop's house and was also delicious and wonderful and perfect. But I didn't take pictures.)


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Trust

Sometimes I think I just might trust people too much. Take today for example. I trusted my roommate Vanie that it would be just fine to get chemical peel done before I went to work tonight. Sure. She said. It will be fine. I'm going to work like this tonight. And I'll be peeling for 5 days. And I can't touch it or it will lead to hyperpigmentation. Awesome.

The things we do for youth....

I PLAYED FOOTBALL!!!

So in the midst of everything, I went on a bike ride. My friend Meagan was at my house getting ready for Powder Puff football practice (she's also my roommate's sister). I mentioned to her that I had wanted to play, but I really couldn't make practice and life was so crazy, blah, blah, blah.
Turns out practice was right then.
Turns out I had the night off.
Turns out one girl had dropped out.
Turns out I really like playing defensive line.

I mean, how often do we girls get to ram into each other and let out our buried aggression? Huh? Never, right?

Here's some pics for your enjoyment:

(p.s. It was a mid-singles 25-35 year old event, hence, the cougars versus the gold-diggers. I didn't have any idea how uncomfortable I would feel wearing something that looked like it was from BYU. I felt like a traitor to every school I've ever gone to.)

Fashionable

Our friend Polly has taken to posting what she wears everyday. That's how fashionable she truly is. About once a month I'm really pleased with my outfit enough to do such a thing. Here's my two.


The sweater and weird green shirt are from Target. The shirt is a maternity shirt that was on clearance for $3.
The white shirt and sweet necklace are from H&M, which store I totally hated the first time I went (it's generally made for girls littler than me). Vanie and I decided that basically this necklace makes everything go from boring to cool in 3 seconds flat. It's awesome :-)
(As a side note, all my boots circa 2004 are completely worn out and this is the absolute worst year ever to find good high-heeled boots. They are either all scrunchy or over-the-knee, leaving me 3 inches of bootless thigh.....terrible)

And John is 28.

Then John turned 28 two weeks later. (Of course, Candice turned 29 3 days earlier, but that was up in Idaho, and I wasn't part of that :-( ).
We wanted to make John's party totally awesome, but, I, of course, am not so good with ideas.
Luckily, he is.
We all went bowling at Lucky Strike, a club/bowling alley that is basically awesome. They have a couple in LA and it's basically sweet ambience, delicious food, and a little bowling on the side. It's perfect JVizz birthday. And we were so caught up making sure everyone got there and could figure out where it was (it's brand new here in Phoenix, and, well, everyone was late....), that I completely forgot to take pictures. So here's the link.
http://www.bowlluckystrike.com/about/photos/
You can just imagine us all there :-)

Then off to the Vig, basically another just really delicious restaurant where I previously had nachos bigger than my head. (And who make chicken sandwiches seem like masterpieces....)
And thanks to Caitlin, who took the only picture of the night.

Love you, John! Happy Birthday!

Brad is what....26?

So Brad turned 26 on October 10th. It's a little beyond me that my little brother could be 26. He seems to be creeping up on me rapidly in age (which really only means that I'm rapidly creeping older and older.....).
We went to Geisha-a-go-go; a sushi/karaoke place. We rented out a room that they said was good for 10. For a fancy-schmancy Scottsdale place, it was more than a little creepy and a little claustrophobic.

Yep. That's the whole room (plus a TV on the other side). But the sushi was great, and we did have a blast singing group karaoke to classics such as:
"Yesterday" by the Carpenters
"Sweet Caroline" Neil Diamond
"You Oughta Know" Alanis
and a bunch of others I should remember.
Honestly, it was pretty awesome. Even if our waitress looked somewhat terrified everytime she walked in. And even if she was a little confused how or why 10 people wouldn't imbibe the alcohol at a birthday party.....
Happy Birthday Brado!
p.s. can you find the matching cardigans in the picture? yep, that wasn't planned.

Sperms & Eggs

I'm a little overwhelmed by the thought that I have 2 months to catch up blogging with. But, of course, I'm quite obviously overwhelmed with everything if I've neglected my blog for 57 days. (I've tried to keep up with y'all's!) Graduation is in T minus 11 days and it seems like more and more stuff keeps cropping up that has to be done before I graduate. A poster that I think I've edited 12 times is the first thing that comes to mind and might be driving me crazy. Or the final that I almost forgot and had to do after night shift and before date on Friday. I don't remember graduation being quite so complicated the first 2 times around...(or 3, I guess....).

Anyways, there have been some fun things, like....
I actually got to see these eggs removed from a woman. Then "washed" off. Then fertilized, needle-style, by these sperm. We got to choose the best sperm for the job and then hope for the best.
I got to see one lady cry (for a million reasons, I'm sure), as she held her husband's hand as 3 little embryos were placed inside her for safe-keeping.
And that was all in one day.
The rest of the semester consisted of switching back and forth between nights for work at the beginning of the week and days for clinicals at the end of the week. My other clinicals were somewhat more routine and consisted of GBS swabs, fetal heart tones, and ultrasounds, but the point being, my hours are DONE!! I still have to take boards in a couple months, I still have to find a job (hopefully more on the GYN side than the OB side; I can't deliver babies, so it's a little anti-climactic to do pre-natal care; I'd rather replace your hormones and fix your menstrual cycle and control your diabetes.....) but we'll see where the next few months lead. I am going to continue on with my "Doctor of Nursing Practice," but that degree won't really change anything as far as career goes. 4 more semesters, here we come (but holy cow I am ready for this break!)