Wholy Craziness Batman

It has a been a very, very crazy couple of weeks. Of course we had a wonderful little Ice Storm. Which we survived no problem, just a couple of power flickers. Then right after that we had both got sick. Fred was first (for a change), he came down very suddenly with the flu. The nasty one that sticks around for about two weeks. Thankfully we got him in to the Urgent Care Center within 48 hours of onset so they were able to give him some medication. Anti Viral medication and some pain killers. Then a few days later I landed at the doctor. Luckily I didn't have the flu, I had a chest wall infection. Which may sound terrible and worse than the flu but, it isn't really. I went on some antibiotics and some awesome pain killers. Slept for the most of three days and I was back to pretty much normal. The later half of that week was spent getting ready to leave for Cleveland. We cleaned the house, did a ton of laundry, and packed for our week long vacation.
Sunday afternoon we packed up the car and the cat and we took a nice drive up to Cincinnati to see our friends, and pseudo siblings, Dave and Erin. We stopped and had dinner with them, visited for a little while and then headed up to Cleveland. We arrived late Sunday night, and simply set up the bed and crashed.
Monday was spent just hanging out with Janelle and Julie at the house. Fred and I didn't want to go anywhere after spending six hours in the car the day before. Also we wanted to give Raek a chance to adjust to his surroundings with us there. Ben and Janelle went out for their 'Pi Anniversary' while we watched Julie. That was another night we went to bed early.
Tuesday morning, Fred and I woke up on a very deflated air mattress. I'm not sure if I crawled out of bed or fell out. But that morning I had a photo shoot to do. That was the reason we actually decided to go up. After the shoot I spent pretty much the whole day editing pictures. If you would like to see them they are on my business website.
Wednesday was a huge highlight for me. We (Fred, Janelle, Julie, and Me) went to Kirtland, Ohio. I had never been there, and what a wonderful place. The Temple was closed. It is only open on the weekends in January and February. But we were able to go around the church owned sites. What was fantastic was the fact that we were the only ones there. Julie fell asleep in the car so Janelle sat with her while we went on the tour. We had a wonderful private tour with Elder and Sister Harris. We the took us into all of the buildings we wanted to go in. Including the ones that were closed. Usually when it's really cold out they don't go into the Saw Mill and the Ashery. They were soo cool. The mill was powered by water and it took 7 minutes to cut a single length of wood. It may go a little faster when the water level was high but that was the avarage rate. And a lot of the machinery is the original gear. It was escavated and restored to be put on display. And they are all in working order. It could start up tomorrow. Can you believe it. I'd also never heard of an Ashery. But they treated fire ashes and turned it into lye, and then into potash or pearlash. They would use these things to make soap, glass, gun powder, and several other things. I wonder why we still don't uses ashes for those things. It is a great way to recycle things. Yes it requires more labor that way but I'm sure we could find a way to moderize it to be more efficent. Okay I maybe crazy but I thought it was awesome. Next we walked up to the Whitney House. Yes it was small but what an adorable little home. And for the day it was really a large house for only five people. The little room on the right is the kitchen. It was a nice size kitchen. It was almost as big as the one in my house, and almost an entire wall was an oven. There was a big table in the middle to work on. I found myself a little jealous of it. As I stood in the room I could almost feel the warmth from the stove, and smell fresh baked bread. Up and downstairs were bedrooms. We couldn't see those because they were too small for everyone to fit in. The next room was where the main fireplace was, another bread oven, a dining table, and rocking chair. It was kind of the everything room. I was so well put together, I could almost see a family sitting in there. Playing and crawling all over each other trying to keep entertained. Even though no one had lived in it for years you could still feel the love that resided there. Our next stop was over to the Whitney Store. That was a serious step back in time. My family did historical re-enactiments so when I walked into that store I felt like a kid again. I saw things that I used to camping with. Tin lanterns, calico fabics, bonnets, natural leathers and corn cob checkers. A big part of my heart jumped for joy. Those times camping with my family were some of the best I remember. Yes I complained sometimes during it but I look back on them fondly. And that store brought back every happy memory I had. I loved it!
The rest of the week was spent watching movies, eating food, (yes folks I ate) and playing with Julie. Oh how cute she was. By the end of the week she was so comfortable with us around that she would try to follow us around and miss us when we left the room. Of course by tomorrow she'll have forgot we were there at all. Julie loved the cat. Raek wasn't so sure about it. Raek was terrified of Julie. Thursday morning though Raek figured out that he was faster than Julie and that she couldn't climb stairs. So he would get up on the stairs and Julie would sit at the bottom, or hold on to a couple of stairs and standing. She would just stand there and watch Raek as he watched the fish. Also Raek figured out the she could get close enough to her so he could look at her. Then she would move toward Raek and he would walk away and Julie would follow. They did that for almost 30 min. It was adorable. I wanted to get a picture but the camera was upstairs and if I went up there Raek would have gone into hiding.
Today we drove home. Started unpacking and doing laundry. We watched our shows we recorded and had fast food for dinner. A perfect way to end a vacation. I just hope it doesn't take too long to recover. ;)

Awake At 02:40

For those who don't know I occasionally have insomnia. This is one of those nights. So here I am awake at 2:40 in the morning with not a whole lot to do. I'm played out on my game and I don't just want to sit and watch Star Trek I want to do some thing. So I am doing a random blog about random things. Hopefully it will help drain my brain so I can get some sleep.

Random Topic #1: Food
I'm not much of an eater. I can go just about a whole day without eating food and it not really bugging me. And no I'm not Anorexic, never have been either. Mostly I'm not much of an eater because I don't eat for pleasure. Most people when they eat their body releases some endorphins which make you feel better. Thus you can enjoy eating which makes you want to do it. My body doesn't do that. Food is just something I have to have, an annoying part of my daily routine. Most days it takes work to make something so why bother eating. So I'm what you would call a social eater. I eat better when I'm with someone, because it's worth the effort for me. Also I enjoy the company of others so it makes the whole experience of eating better. On occasion food does sound good and I very much enjoy meals. For example I'm going to Chipotle in a couple weeks, and I'm already excited. :) It's been years since I had one of their burritos and guacamole, and it is um um goodness.

Random Topic #2: Pain
I'm a pain machine. I handle pain pretty well, and this is all thanks to my brother Benjamin. When we were teenagers we ran cross-country for the same school. Benjamin was always proud of my running abilities and hated when I would complain about hurting. He would tell me to suck it up and keep running. What a great big brother huh? Well really he helped mold me into a real fighter. None of us knew it at the time but the pain I was feeling was far more complicated than we imagined. It wasn't until years later that we found out that it wasn't just runners pains but by then Benjamin's "Suck It Up" motto was ingrained in my brain. And thank goodness for that! Since I was trained to be a fighter by my brother I was able to do firefighting in Colorado, serve a mission in California, work in Professional Theater and do a lot of other things. The only down fall was that now I'm having to get out of the habit of fighting so hard. To let others take care of me and to just kick back and relax. Still I wouldn't have changed my life one bit. I love ya' Ben!!!!

Random Topic #3: Road Rage
I just don't get it. Fred will deny this but he has a small bit of it. Pam will admit that she can be really bad about it. And there are lots of other people out there who have Road Rage to some degree or another, but why do you get mad and stay mad at people on the road. So they aren't good drivers which I'm sure we are all guilty of that at one point or another. I can understand being momentarly upset with someone, but staying mad. The other day I was nearly side swiped by someone. I had to slam my breaks and blast the horn. Quickly the other car pulled out of the way, I know plenty of people who would say a few choice words and get upset about it. I simply said "Wow." But we were all okay so no big deal life goes on. I know I've done that on occasion, it's not on purpose it just happens. But even if someone does it on purpose oh well, there is no point in getting upset about it. So stop calling people on the road dumb and stupid (I dispise that word anyway) and just send out good vibes. Maybe, just maybe if we were all more understanding the things that might makes us mad may not happen.

Well that is the end of my thoughts and my mind is just about shot. Wahoo! So until next time, Eat Wisely, Suck It Up and leave the Road Rage at home.

Wishful Wednesday

My sister in law does this just about every week. She writes a quick blog about something she wishes for. Sometimes they are actual items and sometimes they are like having family closer, or better weather. Since there is actually something I'm wishing for I decided to do one.

Here is what I want:

This is a Sony Alpha DSLR-A200 SLR Digital Camera. It is a very nice piece of camera equipment. It takes pictures at 10.2 Mega Pixels. Which doesn't sound like a lot but because it's a SLR and doesn't use digital lenses you can take better pictures with less pixels. It also have 1/4000 second shutter speed. That is faster than you can blink! I won't bore you with the rest of the details. If you want to check them out here is the website.

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665315453

The best part about this wish is that soon I will actually have it. If I was irresponsible I would have already ordered it. But since I am a responsible adult (some days) I'm waiting until our tax return comes in. A couple of weeks and it will be all mine!!!!

By the way, the price on that website is not what I'm paying for it. I a found much, much better price.

My Many Names

I saw this on Facebook and it looked fun. I'm going to share it with you all.

1. YOUR REAL NAME:
Crys Kaestner

2. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME:(mother and fathers middle names)
Ruth Criag

3. NASCAR NAME:(first name of your mother's dad, father's dad)
Elden George

4. STAR WARS NAME:(the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name)
Kaecr

5. DETECTIVE NAME:(favorite color, favorite animal)
Orange Frog (Who is going to hire me with that name)

6. SOAP OPERA NAME:(middle name, town where you were born)
LaRayne Springville

7. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd fav color, fav drink, add "THE" to the beginning)
The Green Water

8. FLY NAME:(first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name)
Crer

9. STREET NAME:(fav ice cream flavor, fav cookie)
Vanilla Raisin Oatmeal

10. ROCK STAR NAME:(current pets name, current street name)
Raek Warm Springs

11. PORN NAME: (1st pet, street you grew up on)
Tiger Summer

12. YOUR GANGSTA NAME:(first 3 letters of real name plus izzle)
Cryizzle

13. YOUR GOTH NAME:(black, and the name of one of your pets)
Black Raek

14. STRIPPER NAME: (name of your fav perfume/cologne, fav. candy)
Delight Gummy Bear (so awesome!)