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Lori Pickens

Five on Friday – Bonus Edition

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1.) Site maintenance. With the blog maintenance going on, I wasn’t able to post regularly as we were testing things. We think we’ve got all of the bugs worked out, and I should be able to go back to posting daily. So in order to catch, up I had to do some mass updates. The blog home page only displays the last 5 entries, so most of the entries have scrolled off the page, but if you are a regular reader and want to catch up on things, make sure you check the archives:


July Archives
June Archives 

There’s a lot of pictures of the house progress, some new scrapbook pages, and a few photography sessions thrown in.

2.) Five on Friday Recap. As I go through my week, I make notes for my Five on Friday posts. Sometimes these are mental notes; sometimes I actually jot down little notes or even type up a blurb or two. Despite the fact that there hasn’t been any Five on Friday posts on the blog lately, I’ve still been making notes. So instead of going back and post dating a bunch of stuff, I’ve decided to do a Five on Friday Bonus Edition. Basically, I’m just going to keep numbering until I’ve got all of my updates out of the way.

3.) Carpal tunnel. So I had my EMG testing last week, and as it turns out I do NOT have carpal tunnel. Not even close. The doctor said I have no signs of nerve damage. He doesn’t really know why my fingers were tingly and painful for an entire month. He is guessing I may have had some type of nerve irritation for overworking it, but he said there was no permanent damage. When the tingling had gotten better the last few weeks, I just figured the wrist brace was working. I had been wearing it at night, when I was typing, and when I cross stitched or quilted anything, but he said he didn’t think it was necessary at this point. Obviously, I had good reason to question “Veronica’s” diagnosis.

4.) EMG. An EMG, which studies nerve conductions (by delivering electrical impulses to the nerves) and muscles (by inserting a needle probe into different muscles), is an uncomfortable procedure but a very useful and sensitive test for carpal tunnel syndrome.
Overall the EMG wasn’t too bad. I was worried, because I had read so many things online about how painful it can be. It definitely hurt a little bit, but nothing too horrible.

5.) Car problems. As we went to leave the neurologist’s office after my testing, we were glad to have the clear diagnosis and excited that it didn’t take too long, because we were hoping to make it out to the house and talk to Clair and the guys before they quit for the day. We had a good 45 minutes to make it out there, so we were set ? or so we thought. We get in the car, and it won’t start! Lovely! Nathan
checks some things under the hood, but we weren’t really sure if it was the battery or the starter or what. So we called my parents, and they head our way to try and give us a jump. We eventually get the jeep started and took it to Advanced Auto. It turned out to be a bad cell in the battery, which was actually still under warranty, so we didn?t even have to pay for a new one. Needless to say, we didn’t make it out to the house in time, but at least we didn’t end up having to spend a bunch of money on repairs.

6.) The E.R. That same day, Nathan had a softball game at 9:30. During the game, while Nathan was playing in the right outfield, he made the most.amazing.catch! Seriously, it would have been a highlight on ESPN if we had it on tape. It was a foul ball, and he had to run clear off of the field, practically into the parking lot, and jump 10 feet in the air, while completely stretched out horizontally to catch the ball. It was seriously A.MAZ.ING! After he caught it and was walking back to the field, everyone was cheering and clapping, and I said, “Oh yeah, that’s my husband!” Well, a few innings later, he had to run up to try and catch another fly ball. He didn’t make it there in time and kind of fell and rolled forward trying to dive for the ball. When he fell he landed on his shoulder. It really didn’t look too bad, but after the next pitch he came off the field holding his arm. He tried to sit for awhile and watch the rest of the game, but the pain was pretty bad, and we were afraid he may have broken his collar bone, so we left and went to the emergency room. We waited at the emergency room for 3 hours before they even took an x-ray, and it was another hour or so before we got to see a doctor. The doctor took a quick glance at the x-ray and said that nothing was broken. He told Nathan to ice it and get an MRI done next week if it wasn’t feeling better. Nathan went to see an orthopedic doctor on Wednesday, and he said he thinks Nathan separated his shoulder, but luckily nothing appeared to be torn. Nathan is still in some pain, and his softball season may be over, but in the long run he should be OK.

7.) Sunburst. I FINALLY got a new phone. The outer screen on my old one stopped working months ago, but I didn’t like any of the new ones, so I just kept on using my half-broken one. Well, the other day the inside screen also stopped working, so I finally had to call it quits. It was one of the older Razors that I had for years ? and it was pink. It was a good phone. I ended up getting the Samsung Sunburst. It was free from Sams. Nathan has had the same phone for a few weeks now, and had pretty good luck with it. It has a lot better reception than the Solstice that he had before and had to return. I don’t text or twitter or search the Internet, so my requirements for a phone are pretty simple. I wanted something thin that had good reception and basically just made calls. Overall, I don’t hate the phone. These are my biggest complaints:

– It beeps and lights up when the battery is fully charged. This may not seem like a big deal, but most of the time I charge my phone at night. So I plug it in, and then an hour or two later once I am sound asleep it makes this loud beeping noise and lights up. Highly annoying.

-You cannot change the background on the screensaver when the phone is locked. Basically it just has a group of random images that it rotates through. You do not get to pick a single image and you cannot delet e any of the images in the rotation. Yes, this is annoying and I think I should be allowed to pick my own screensaver, but more importantly, Nathan and I have the same phone. So if our phones are both locked ? which they are the majority of the time unless you are actually using them, they look exactly the same laying on the table. We were able to change the font on Nathan’s so at least there is a slight difference.

I have actually emailed Samsung about both of these items, and they confirmed that there is no way to change those features. Other than those things, and the fact that it doesn’t come in pink, I am adjusting to the phone. I am thinking about ordering one of the custom skins for my phone. Just so it looks nicer and so we could tell ours apart. Has anyone ever ordered one of those before? Is it just a sticker or does it stay on pretty well?

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8.) Kyle and Katy’s Wedding. I did finish editing Kyle and Katy’s wedding photos. I didn’t get a chance to share any of them, because the site was down and the new gallery hasn’t been updated yet, but I did upload some of them to Flickr. You can check out their gallery here:
Kyle and Katy’s Wedding

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9.) Faith turned three. Can you hardly believe it? I have a ton of pictures of her from the party, and I will get them upload as soon as I get a chance.

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10.) Sonicare. Nathan and I switched to an electric toothbrush. Nathan had some receeding gums, and the dentist said that he was probably brushing too hard. He recommend getting an electric tooth brush instead. We got the Phillips Sonicare from Sams Club. It actually came with two brushes, so I got one too. I really like it now, but at first it took some getting used to. The vibration seemed pretty intense and tickled the inside of my mouth. The instructions say that it starts out easier and progressively vibrates more during the first 14 times that you use it, in order to get you accustomed to it. I was really worried that it was going to get more extreme than it was, but now I’m adjusted and hardly notice it. It divides that mouth into four quadrants and has you brush each for thirty seconds for a total brushing of two minutes. It slightly beeps after each thirty seconds and reminds you when to move to the next quadrant. I am ALWAYS afraid that I am going to miss the beep. I know, not a big deal, you can just brush them again, or restart it, but it stresses me out anyways. I like to follow the rules, and I try hard to pay attention for the beep. So far, I have never missed it, but every time it makes me worry. It also has a cleaning cycle that you can select. Basically you just hit the start button twice at the beginning and it will add a two 15-second cycles of the clean mode for the top and bottom front teeth. I have forgotten to hit the start button twice a few times, and end up sad at the end when I don’t get to “whiten” my teeth that day. I also am apparently not capable of pausing the toothbrush; Nathan has shown me how, but I just can’t do it. I either end up stoping the brush altogether or just start everything over again. Frankly, it is difficult to hold toothpaste in your mouth for two and a half minutes, and if I take a break to spit during, I feel like I am cheating that quadrant out of some of it’s time. My compromise is to take a break at the end of the two minute normal cycle and spit during the first 15-second whitening cycle, which I use for the bottom. So far I think this is a good method, but if you notice that my top teeth are a lot whiter than my bottom ones, please let me know, so I can adjust the process. So right now, you are probably thinking that if the tooth brush is causing my all this stress and worrying that I just shouldn’t use it. Maybe I’m just too compulsive for a sophsiticated, electric toothbrush. Well, actually I do really like it. My teeth feel very clean, and in my head it is “better”, so for now I keep using it. Oh, and for the record, I don’t think Nathan has any of these problems with the toothbrush.

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11.) Catalog Living. Anyone who knows me well, knows that I am a fan of Pottery Barn, but I can’t look at a catalog the same way after reading this website. If you need a good laugh, you should seriously check out the lives of Gary and Elaine and their Catalog Living.

12.) Are we in the house yet? That is the million dollar question that everyone keeps asking. Unfortunately, no we are not. I figure they still have a few weeks left. Yes, we are getting anxious. Clair and the crew are working hard, and it is really looking good, but there are still a lot of little things to finish.

Wow, that was longer than I even thought. Sorry for being so long-winded, but that’s what happens when I keep all the updates bottled up for a month.

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