Dental Dread

Recently, I was introduced to the potential horrors of mercury based tooth fillings. Little bits of mercury entering your blood stream every time you bite down, potentially causing cancer and Lord knows what else--the 'fraidy cat that I am...this freaked me out. I have SEVEN mercury fillings. I don't even know why I've had so many cavities? Although I've always had a bit of sweet tooth, I've always had good dental hygiene, too. At least I know it's way better than Ben's. Before I started making him, he never brushed his teeth at night! (Ew, I know! His momma taught him better!) And every night while I'm flossing, he's already counting sheep in bed. Yet he has never had a cavity in his life. So not fair. So now that I'm all growed up and have my own dental insurance, (completely paid for by my employer, might I add,) I decided to take advantage of my policy and get a check up. So I had my appointment today. To sum it up, it went bad. As the hygienist is cleaning my teeth, she asks me if I floss. I was hoping it would be obvious that I did, but apparently, it wasn't. I asked her about mercury fillings, and she told me that the biggest risk that they pose is when they are being applied and the mercury hasn't set yet. She also told me insurance covers having them removed. Well then. When she pulled up the xrays of my teeth, she showed me how I have 3 wisdom teeth, and the one on the bottom is turned almost completely horizontal. Something about it being embedded in a nerve. Cool. Then she showed me dark spots on my teeth, which could be cavities. After the cleaning and polishing, the dentist came in and looked at my teeth...she began listing off numbers and codes, ("The D-5 needs an OT," or something like that.) As I counted how many teeth she was listing off, I thought, surely those aren't all cavities? Oh yes, they were. Basically, the mercury fillings I already had were wearing away, creating new cavities around the cavities I already had. GROSS! I'm so mad. So now I'm going to have those dang bio-hazards removed and replaced with nice, pretty, safe white ones. It's interesting to me that when they remove the fillings from my mouth, federal law prohibits them from being thrown in the trash. So, I'm a little relieved to be rid of the fillings, but not looking forward to the process at all. At least they prescribed me a sedative to use on those days. They are going to do one side of my mouth on two different visits. After that's done, I might start thinking about having my wisdom teeth removed. I've never had surgery, and that scares me. Heck, just going to the dentist scares me. I'm such a baby. So now I have that to look forward to.

For now, I'm off to yoga!

Great weekend!

So this past weekend was really really good! My best friend Annie finally got to come visit us, and see our house! It was so great to have some girl time with her; I miss her so much. She graduating in a few weeks and I'm so happy for her! I've known Annie since she was a freshman at SFA, so I kind of feel like I've seen her "grow up." My little baby! :) Anyways, she went with me to a music festival in Houston called "A Day in the Country", headlined by none other than MIRANDA LAMBERT!!! I got to have another meet and greet with Miranda, which was great because just a week before, she won Video of the Year for "White Liar", Album of the Year, and Female Vocalist of the Year at the Academy of Country Music Awards! I told her I was so very happy for her, and we were jumping off the couch as she was winning, and she told me thank you very much, and that it meant a lot to her. I also told her I bet there was a party going on that night, and she said there still was! I could tell she was very confident and felt on top of the world during her show, and that was very fun to see. It was Annie's first time to see Miranda live, so that was exciting too. Backstage, I ran into two of the guys in Miranda's band, and got pictures with them as well. Sunday after Annie left we got to have lunch with Ben's parents, and it was good to see them! Then we went to Melissa and Travis' to watch the Talladega Nascar race before going to small group. A good weekend, which wasn't quite long enough, as usual!

Awesome red eye, Jess.


PS-Last Saturday was our 6 month wedding "anniversary". :)

I'm going back to college!

Yoga college, that is!

Okay, let me explain. I've enrolled in classes at a Bikram Yoga College of India. Bikram is a Yogi Master who lives in LA and teaches yoga instructors and movie stars his specific method of yoga, so that those people may open his "Yoga Colleges" around the world and make him more rich and famous. The classes include a series of 26 poses performed over a period of 90 minutes in a room that is heated to a temperature of 105 degrees. Yes, it is long, and yes, it is hot. Like, you can see sweat dripping off me, hot. The purpose of the heat is to warm your muscles to reduce injury and promote deeper stretching, as well as detoxification through obscene amounts of sweat. As crazy as it sounds, I'm loving it! The first class I felt like I couldn't breathe after about an hour, but after the second class, I felt amazing...like I had just had a massage. It's such a luxury to relax and focus on stretching and improving my body for a whole hour and a half. When was the last time I did that? Um, never. There were a lot of people in the classes; men and women of all shapes and sizes. I'm not going to make fun of them though, because I know I looked totally gross as well. I'm just going to say...it seems the requirement for men to attend class is they must be very hairy and not modest at all. You get the picture! It doesn't bother me though. I admire their dedication, and we each bring a towel to cover our yoga mat with, so there is no intermingling of sweat drippage.

The truth is, I didn't seek out this place because of Bikram or even the hot room, but because I've always enjoyed yoga and this was the only stand alone yoga studio in town. I've been pleasantly surprised though, and I have a pass to attend 10 more classes in the next month. I'll keep you posted!

As they say in yoga, namaste.

Crafty Sue!

So this past weekend, I was feeling a little crafty! I thought I'd share my project! (Sorry the pictures are dark...I used my iPhone.)

First, I was inspired by one of the craft blogs that I follow, Tatertots and Jello. I've been looking for something to decorate our guest bedroom walls with, and her doily projects seemed to fit the bill. I bought some canvases at Hobby Lobby and some doilies at Dollar Tree, a little scrapbook paper and Mod Podge later...viola! Blank walls no more!



Close up.


I also covered a floor pillow...but I still need to work on it, and make the mate, so maybe I'll post those pics when I'm completely finished.

Saturday night, our small group friends Cedric and Mary got married! The wedding and reception was beautiful, and we had a really good time seeing everyone from our group all dressed up and letting loose! As we were leaving the reception, the DJ announced that we could take a flower centerpiece. I plucked a few hydrangeas from an arrangement because I LOVE hydrangeas, but Cedric saw me and insisted that I take the whole thing. Soooo we came home with a 3 foot tall floral arrangement. I didn't really have anywhere to put it, and I knew our cat, Patsy, would have a field day with it, so I decided to break it down into smaller flower arrangements. I used some of the Mason jars I had left over from our own wedding as vases. I really had fun creating different looks, (country, modern, monochromatic,) with the flowers!

Before


After


So now, we have flowers in basically every room of the house! I love it!




I hope you have a great week!

My hero!

As you probably know, I love love love singer/songwriter Miranda Lambert. If you do nothing else on the internet today, click this link and watch the video for her new single, "The House That Built Me." I dare you not to cry!

PS-I just got a meet and greet with her for April 24th! Yessssssssss!

Nobody here but us servantless American cooks...

It's only Tuesday? Man...yesterday was long! Overtime will do that. Today has turned out to be an interesting day. I saw a girl in the break room this morning put 7 pumps of concentrated French Vanilla Coffeemate in her mug, then powdered coffee creamer, then sugar, then Sweet-N-Low, then a few drops of coffee. EWWWW! Then later on one of my earrings fell off and into the toilet. (I flushed it.) I wonder what other interesting things will happen today?

I hope everyone had a great Easter...we did! After church we went home and I cooked allllll afternoon. I decided to finally bust out "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" and try a recipe or two. I've been dying to do it ever since I bought it with wedding gift cards a few months ago, but I just haven't had the time! Of course, Ben and I were doing our best Julia Child impersonations all day. "Bon appetite!" To bring over to Missy and Travis' for dinner, I decided to make puree de pommes de terre a l'ail and reinde de saba avec glacage au chocolat. Sounds impressive, huh? Translates to "garlic mashed potatoes" and "chocolate almond cake with chocolate buttercream". The mashed potato recipe actually called for two entire heads of garlic! The slow, laborious cooking of the cloves softens the flavor, so it's not as obsene as it sounds. The potatoes were good, but not good enough to make all the extra effort worth it. I'll probably stick to regular mashed potatoes from now on. However, the garlic sauce that was mixed in would probably be good on something else...maybe chicken? The chocolate cake was really yummy! I did have a few Julia-esque goofs-1)When I was supposed to sift in 1/4 of the flour, I wasn't paying attention and sifted it all in at once. 2)When I tried to remove the cake from the pan, it came out in two chunks. I glued it back together with frosting. 3)I used a 9 inch pan instead of an 8 inch pan and didn't think about adjusting my baking time, so it came out a little dryer than it is supposed to be. None the less, it turned out pretty good, and I will definitely try again! Practice makes perfect!



While I'm blogging about cooking from Julia Child-I have to suggest the movie "Julie and Julia". We Netflixed it a few weeks ago and it was pretty good! And I think I found the original blog the book/movie is based on! Cool!

The Julie/Julia Project.

xoxo!

HAPPY EASTER!

So it's "month end" at work...blah! We have to get all of the previous month's billing finished before we can move on to the next. This means lots of overtime hours and stressful days during the first work week of the month. Monday and Tuesday will be the longest...so I'm really hoping to have some fun this weekend! I'm thinking about going to see my family tomorrow, because my parents just bought a new house this week and I want to help them select paint colors, finishes, etc, and I don't know when I'll have a chance to go down there this month since I already have plans every Saturday in April. It would just be for the day though...so I guess I'll just see. Sunday is Easter! I can't wait to go to church and see all the little kids in their new outfits. I always love that! We are going to have dinner with Missy and Travis Sunday night at their house so we can have a mini-family get together and hide eggs for Avery. I'm going to attempt to make a Julia Child chocolate almond cake, which will be interesting. More on that next week I'm sure...

Tonight Ben and I are going to do this month's "Great Date Experiment." It's this program our church is doing where they provide a creative date guideline and childcare, (which we obviously won't need!) once a month for six months. It is designed to make your marriage stronger and bring back the romance. It's for people who have been married a while, but we are participating anyway! This will be our second great date, and we have reservations a "fancy" restaurant downtown. I'm excited! Is it five o'clock yet????

Have a great weekend!