Thanksgiving! (Properly!)

As I said before, I spent Thanksgiving with my family which was wonderful! There were a few tensions between my sister and me (more on that at some other point), but otherwise it was great.

I took the train down late Wednesday night and got picked up a the station by my Mum and Grandmother. The journey was fine, but obviously the trains were all super crowded and I was running late etc etc. I'm also a nervous traveller (not normally with trains though), but the presence of lots of armed police and police dogs on the trains didn't exactly make me feel super relaxed.

On Thursday we headed into NY to go to the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, which is a *huge* parade through NY with giant balloons and floats with people dancing/singing/ice skating/all sorts of other crazy things.





This was the first photo I took all day and it's my favourite one! I just find random floating pumpkins hilarious!



I really really really HATE McDonalds (it's pretty much evil incarnate in my eyes), but I like the picture!



...and I like this picture too




Another picture that I find ridiculously amusing. I have no idea who these kids are but it's a) health and safety gone mad and b) something that my parents would've done if they'd thought of it when we were younger!

We also, of course, had traditional Thanksgiving food which was delicious! (And I ate wayyy too much!) (I thought I had a picture of my Thanksgiving dinner somewhere but I can't find it. Maybe it was on Dad's camera).

On Friday we headed into NY again, but this time to see the Rockettes. It was the first time I'd ever seen them and they were so incredible!

The Rockettes were incredible! If anyone ever gets the opportunity to see them definitely go!

I really liked this chandelier in Radio City Music Hall (the theater)!

Plus: there was lots of Christmassy stuff in NY. The Rockettes are also a Christmas show so those two things put me into the Christmas mood! (I'm listening to Christmas music now...it's almost December!)

Christmas Trees in NY!

There was also the most beautiful sunset when we got back to my grandmother's home, so I took a bunch of pictures of that!

Saturday was my sister's birthday. (She's turning 20). I also had a terrible skin allergic reaction to something (I think putting my facewash on dry instead of wet?!), so that put me in a bit of a bad mood. (TMI but the skin on my face all started peeling off).

I also had a super yummy/intense salad for lunch:

I travelled back to college on Sunday. The journey was much better than it could've been and I got to meet up with my boyfriend in NY, which always makes things easier (someone to carry my bags. Hehe.).

So now...just back to the grind of school for another three weeks. I've been finding it a bit difficult to settle back in/motivate myself, but today's been a good (better) day with work and a less bad day for food :).

Thanksgiving!

I had a bunch of posts written up to post over Thanksgiving and some how none of them got posted :(.

Anyway, this is just going to be a quick post because I need to get to lab (urgh!), but I'll write a proper one later!

Thanksgiving was great. I spent it with my family (brother, sister, mum, dad and grandmother) at my grandmother's house. We ate all the traditional Thanksgiving-y foods (and I ate way to too much), but it was a lot of fun. We also celebrated my sister's birthday over the weekend, which was fun. I didn't really get up to much, mostly just hanging out with family, but I'll post some pictures later on (after lab!).

Hope everyone else had a wonderful Thanksgiving (if you celebrate it!)

Gratitude, Day 2: Smile

I don't really like my smile. Occasionally I seem to smile in some kind of different way that I really like, but in almost all photos I me I have the "bad" smile (which I basically think looks like a pained grimace).



The pained grimace smile! :P

There is one thing that I do really like about my smile though: it's exactly the same as my grandmothers.



My grandmother's smile!

My mum's mum is my only grandparent who is still around and she is wonderful! She lives pretty close to me at college and has been a constant source of support. She's 80 years old, and is still incredibly active and mentally sharp. (Occasionally she can drive me nuts! But on the whole she's pretty perfect.) Anyway, I'm grateful (even if I don't like my smile) that it reminds me of someone I love.

I'm also grateful that my skin seems to be improving. I posted about this earlier, but the worst part was the area on the left and right sides of my chin (I think it's genetic. My mum said that was always the worst part of her skin). Anyway, the really important thing (to me) is that it doesn't appear to be scarring that much. Fingers crossed that the rest of it will clear up soon! (The scarring aspect of things is, I think, looking good. However, the medicine is designed to bring everything to the surface and make my skin essentially break out/look terrible, so that part doesn't look to good. I'm not even sure if that makes sense? Anyway, I just tried to take a picture of it and it looks yuck and was putting me off my breakfast, so I'll post a picture once the breakout's died down a bit and you can see the "extent" of the scarring better!).

My sister and now...the boyfriend

My sister still hasn't worked out what her "illness X" is. Over the summer she was diagnosed with a couple of parasites. In people who aren't ill they don't treat them, because they're generally considered to be pretty minor, but because my sister was so ill they decided to treat. After the treatment she was feeling much better, and we all thought we'd solved it. But...a few weeks later she had midterms. She was stressed and not sleeping enough and all her symptoms came rushing back. (TMI warning!) Her doctor freaked out a few weeks ago because apparently there was blood in her stool, which is never a good thing. The doctor ordered an emergency colonoscopy, which I'm still waiting to hear the results of. She was also gluten free for a while (one of her many doctors diagnosed her with a wheat allergy), but someone else has now told her that she should have seen an improvement by now, so she's coming off that diet. (Which is great, I already think she's too thin.) She's also been seeing a counselor type to deal with some of the psychological aspects of this whole thing - she's understandably been finding it incredibly difficult to deal with all this while at college, and is also feeling like she's wasting her college years. Anyway, I will keep you all updated with any (fingers crossed!) improvements.

My boyfriend has also suffered from stomach issues for a long time (since way before we were together), but they seem to be getting worse. He saw a doctor in the UK who put him on an elimination diet, called FODMAP. Essentially, it cuts out everything but protein and some vegetables (ie no wheat, no dairy, cuts out a lot of fruit). At the same time he had a blood test, which showed abnormally (worryingly) high uric acid and creatine (indicating, according to the doctor, muscle death). The diet is meant to be 8 weeks long, so we're just getting to the reintroduction stage (which is good!). However, he had another blood test last week and the uric acid and creatine are still high, and he apparently now has high bilirubin, which is a by product of blood breakdown. The doctor at our health services is now very worried about his kidneys and has referred him to a kidney specialist for an ultrasound. He's going to have that on Friday. It would be really really tough on us and him if there was something serious. I really doubt there is, as this thing's never showed up on any previous blood tests, but it's still nerve wracking (and obviously kidney's are pretty important).

Anyway, as usual, I feel like I'm completely in the epicenter of all this stuff. I'm really hoping that all my sisters issues get resolved soon, and also that this whole thing with the boyfriend turns out to be not as serious as everyone seems to think it is at the moment :S.

Sunday was not a good day for me....

I'm really close to my family, and every time someone comes to visit me and then leaves I get a little upset/depressed. I've always been this way, even when I was really little. I remember/my mum's told me that I used to get absolutely hysterical in the airport when we dropped off my grandparents. I also used to cry every day when I had to go to school and leave my mum (yeah, I have/had issues). (The counselor person that I went to go see decided that I had a traumatic childhood full of loss and that now I have attachment issues. I definitely didn't have a traumatic childhood, or one full of loss, but the attachment issues part has some merit...).

Anyway, I also get bouts of nostalgia for various things like childhood. The silly thing is that I'm sure it wasn't that great when it was happening, but it seems like it would be great to go back to it now. (On the other hand, if push came to shove, I don't think I could give up my current life). I also know that in a couple of years I'll look back on my time now and feel nostalgic for that.

My little brother (who visited over the weekend) is currently in his first year of college. It seems like he's having so much fun, and it makes me miss when everything was new and exciting. There's also a girl he likes (and I have literally spent hours in the last few weeks giving him advice on that). I absolutely adore my boy now, and wouldn't break up with him for anything in the world, but hearing all about what my brother's up to does make me miss the beginning of a relationship, when it was exciting when he said he loved your or invited you out. It's not that that stuff isn't exciting now, but I know he loves me (we've been together for over 2.5 years at this point, so I hope he does!!). Him being in the first year of college and having this girl he's pursuing made me nostalgic, and him leaving (at the end of the weekend to go back to his college) just compounded the upset.

When I feel nostalgic I just feel completely depressed and overwhelmed and don't want to do anything but sleep. I'm over it now, and am feeling a lot better (getting over it in a day is pretty good for me!), but it sucks when it's happening. I still haven't really found any successful way of stopping it happening (and I have a feeling I never will) but at least I'm finding ways of coping. The most useful thing my counselor ever said was that I know this is going to happen. It happens without fail every time someone visits and leaves. Either that means that I can't have family visit (and I don't like that idea, I love them visiting) or I need to be aware that when they leave this is going to happen and so I have to plan accordingly. That means trying to get work done in advance, so that I'm not feeling crummy with nostalgia/pseudo-depression and trying to work and also trying to arrange other fun things to do or give myself things to look forward to in the near future.

Do you get nostalgic/upset when things "end"? How do you deal with it?

Exercise as Study Breaks

My brother is visiting this weekend, which is awesome! My family's pretty close and I haven't seen him in a while, so its nice that he was able to come.

Anyway, something he did on Thursday that made me think. We were both mucking around on our computers doing "work" (Thursday is never a productive day for me) and suddenly he jumped off my bed, got down on the floor and started doing pushups!

I'm really big on trying to incorporate exercise into my every day life (taking the stairs instead of the lift etc), but my brother got me re-thinking about whether there were useful little 5 minute exercise things I could do as study breaks when I'm working. I can't really do pushups, and don't like crunches, so I tend to do things like the plank.

Do you do any of those sorts of things? What do you do?

Monday

Monday was a good day foodwise - I stuck to my plan (and I also had salad at both meals, no dessert at either and no french fries!).

I also went to pilates - I haven't been in such a long time (6 months or so!). I remembered most of the positions/moves, but my abs have got much weaker, so I wasn't able to do them as well. (My big problem with pilates is my neck. For some reason I tense it a lot when I'm doing anything that requires me to lie down and hold my head up - crunches and a lot of pilates exercises. When my abs were stronger that problem got better, but they're back to being weak again :(. I need to work on that!).

The pilates also felt gooood after my run yesterday. I am still really sore from it (much more than I would normally be). I'm also really feeling it in my hip flexors which is a bit strange. During the run yesterday (with the new "barefoot" shoes) I felt it in different areas to normal - the top and sides of my feet and the insides of my calves. I also think I really overdid it. After I came back from the run I read more about it all (trying to make sure that I was doing it "right"). Apparently you can seriously mess yourself up if you don't build up slowly. So...the new plan is to try to run in them for 2 x 10 minutes during my two cardio gym trips. I was able to run for longer than normal in them, and I felt better running than I normally do. I'm hoping that once I build up and can run those distances "safely", the shoes will help me to enjoy running again and start solving some of my foot issues!

Midterm grades are starting to trickle in slowly. I'll probably do a post on them in the next few days.

In other news, my poorly sister has to have a colonoscopy tomorrow (a bit tmi, I know). I am sure it'll all go okay, but I'll be thinking of her and keeping my fingers crossed. Also, fingers crossed for this helping to work out what her "illness X" is!

My Sister

...is 19, about a year and half younger than me.

For a long time, we didn't really get along so well. Anyway, as of a year or so ago she's been ill. I call it "illness x", because no-one knows what it is. She's had a bunch of symptoms, including

• hormones way out of whack
• polycystic ovaries
• chronic fatigue
• extremely hormonal/pms-y
• serious digestive issues
• serious bloating
• acne

She's also at college in the US. She's really smart (which caused issues between us for a number of years), and she's also majoring in science. She's just finished her first year.

She's been struggling with all these things for a while, but things got much worse this summer. She also spent a lot of her summer going back and forth to doctors appointments, and is now taking about 10 pills a day. She also hasn't really made any progress with finding out what it is or what's wrong with her.

She's meant to be leading an orientation trip, but I just can't imagine she'll be able to. She was totally exhausted and had to take a rest after going shopping for two hours. I just can't imagine her being able to lead an outdoor hiking trip for 4 or 5 days.

I'm also really worried about her ability to successfully complete next semester. I mean, if she can barely last a morning of shopping I don't know how she's going to handle a semester of college.

This whole illness has changed my relationship with my sister. I've always been a very maternal type of person, and I like to mother people. My sister hates me mothering her, but now she's becoming more open to me looking after her, which is good for us.

Anyway, I'll be writing more about my sister and our relationship later, but she's having a tough time with everything, as are the rest of us!

Things I love

I decided I wanted to do a post on ten of my favourite things (in no particular order, and by no means a complete list), with (some) pictures!

1. My family: my mum, dad, sister, brother, grandmother

2. My gorgeous boyfriend

3. My dogs

(The two above are of my wonderful puppy. (He's really not a puppy any more). He's 11 (almost 11 and a half) and he's a border collie).

(This is a silly picture of our other dog, which is appropriate given what a ridiculous creature she is! She's almost 11, but still acts like a puppy and everyone thinks she's one! She's also a border collie. Our two dogs are cousins!)

4. Nature/The Outdoors/Flowers!

I mentioned this earlier, but when I was younger I loved gardening. I recently got back into taking pictures so I have lots of flowers (they're easy to photograph)!

(These are from a set of gardens near my home)

(Lots of pictures of flowers!)

5. College, and my particular University! We have such an awesome environment here, and so many people work to make that possible. (There is someone in particular whose made such a difference to me. He works in our "academic support center", which holds a bunch of seminars on various seminars on procrastination, better note taking, exam prep etc. In the first seminar I went to, he talked a little about peoples emotions blocking their ability to work, which really run a bell with me because I did used to get really upset and feel useless if I didn't get a good grade on it. He was the person that recommended ACT to me to deal with that issue, and that's been one of the things thats changed my life).

6. The gym! And a supermarket near school that has tonnes of organic, natural produce. (Both the gym and the supermarket help me on my journey to become happier and healthier).

7. Certain parts of me! I've always hated my legs, but after my recent trips to the gym they're actually looking ok!

8. Thunder and lightning and storms and rain.

(not my picture - from free-extras.com!)

9. Autumn (my favourite season. I don't like the summer so much - it's too hot for me! We also have really really gorgeous autumns here in New England)

10. My phone. It's bad, but I couldn't live without it!

(picture from oriongadgets.com)

I realised that I didn't actually talk about what I did in DC...

On Friday we went to visit Hillwood House, which was owned by the (now deceased) head of General Foods. She (yes, she was a woman!) collected a lot of art, especially French and Russian art.

Last summer and this summer I've been trying to become more "cultured", so this was a good visit from that point of view. I also really like Russian art, so it was cool to see that (and they had two Faberge eggs there!).

Saturday was a lazy day, we didn't do all that much (apart from watching the Wimbledon finals, which is always fun!)

On Sunday we went to see a play/musical called "Next to Normal". Its about a woman and her family struggling with this woman's mental disorders. Although the subject matter was a little depressing, the play was incredible and the music was really good (I've been listening to it practically on loop since then!). Anyway, if you get the chance to see it, definitely go.

The "bad" bit of Sunday was that during the play I got a headache and started to feel nauseous. We had thai food for dinner (which I love, but given how I was feeling maybe wasn't the best choice). Anyway, I ended up getting sick to my stomach which wasn't great.

Monday was July 4th. My aunt and uncle had a big party for it and we saw some fireworks, which was fun (I love fireworks). After the fireworks were over someone spotted a small fire down where they’d been set off – it turn out that one of the boxes they came in had caught fire! We also made smores, which I love! (And I barely ever get to have them). I guess smores are an American type of thing (or at least, I only ever seem to have them in the US), so I now associate them with “American holidays”, like July 4^th.

What was everyone else’s favourite part of the weekend/Canada Day/July 4^th? Do other people who celebrate Canada Day/July 4^th have certain foods they associate with it?

My trip back & Back in Lab....

I'm back to school and back in lab. My trip back from DC was fine, which is obviously a good thing.

My trip in DC was great! It was really nice to just get to relax with family and not have to worry about work. My aunt and uncle are very laid back people which helped with the whole relaxation thing!

When I was there, I noticed that they basically live in a fairytale world, and their children certainly do. They're fairly well off, have an incredible house and their kids can do pretty much whatever they want (and have the resources to do it). My family is, I think, in a similar financial situation, but we always had many more rules. For example, we had to be downstairs at 7am to eat breakfast together. If we weren't (which happened very rarely, only if someone was jetlagged or something) we certainly had to make our own breakfast. My cousins, on the other hand, get food made for them by their mum at any time of the day. They're also pretty much allowed to eat anything. They have a "nanny" who bakes a lot, so they always seem to have cookies and muffins around. In my family we could eat that sort of thing, but only really as dessert after a meal.

I was thinking about these two types of parenting. Both seem to have been fairly successful - all three children from both families have turned out relatively well. My cousins certainly had a more laid-back childhood than we did. On the other hand...I'm not sure if I would have switched places. Yeah, it's a pain to have to be downstairs at 7am for breakfast, but it did also mean that we had "family time" every day, and I'm not sure if that's something I would have wanted to sacrifice....

DC

Im in DC now with my Aunt, Uncle, Grandmother and Cousins for July 4th. If you don't hear from me that much, that's why!

I'll be back to school on Tuesday though, so you'll get the full report then :)

Home!

So, I'm home now, which is great. I'm home for about two weeks, and then I'm going to spend the rest of the summer in lab.

In my first two years of college, I found home very stressful and it made me quite unhappy. I'm not really sure why, but I think it was a combination of the hormonal contraception (got much worse after I started taking the pill) and also sibling rivalry (my sister is literally a genius. She's much smarter than me. I just try to hang onto the idea that I'm much more socially adept, which will hopefully serve me better, or equally as well, in the long run. More about that later I'm sure.). Anyway, since all the revelations of junior fall, I'm starting to really enjoy coming home, and I find it much more relaxing now.

Since I've been home...

My sister actually isn't here during the week, as she's working in a physics lab at a university a few hours from home. It's actually kinda nice. I get to see her on the weekends which is good, but it means that I also get a lot of time with my parents without her around (which helps with the sibling rivalry/my feelings of insecurity).

My skins gotten better. In an earlier post I think I talked about how the new sunscreen was making my skin worse. My boyfriend's 21st is on Saturday, and I really want to look good for that. I've stopped using the old sunscreen, and I'm also using a new facewash and I've also been using blackhead removing strips, which seem to be working.

I've missed a few days of vitamins, which isn't great. I need to get back up to speed with those. At home it's a little harder to take them at night, because I'm not sitting around at my desk working, like I am at school.

I've gone to the dentist, and found out that my messed up gum is more serious than I though, but not a total disaster. (Warning: Gross bit) About 10 days ago I managed to cut (cheesewire) the gum behind my last molar on the left side on the bottom (I don't have wisdom teeth) using floss (maybe, it seems a bit unlikely). Anyway, I either did it or exacerbated an existing problem with the floss, and I've partly split my gum open. The dentist doesn't think it'll ever fully heal, but it will close up. I could have surgery to remove the extra piece of gum that's currently attached to the tooth, but he doesn't really recommend it. He's given me some antiseptic type stuff to put on it to prevent infection and told me not to really floss back there (it's okay to do it occasionally and carefully).

I've been bored. I haven't really had all that much that I've needed to do to be honest. Being bored is kinda a nice feeling though, and it is nice to be able to sit around and read fiction books.

I found out that Louis died. We have two dogs (border collies), who are 10 and 11, which is fairly old for a dog. We had a choice of puppies originally, and I absolutely fell in love with Louis, and didn't like the dog we ended up getting at all (I love him now though!). Anyway, Louis is the dog that I loved who is the brother of our current dog.

I've relaxed. I feel much more relaxed and health at home which is good.

I've stopped using the nuvaring (temporarily). I'm not going to see the boyfriend for the whole summer, so it doesn't really make sense to stay on it (especially given how expensive it is!).