I Love It When......

• Nate tells me he wants to "nuggle" with me. I love to snuggle with my kiddos.
• I don't have to cook
• My house is clean
• I go to Olive Garden
• I go to any restaurant, because that means I am not cooking that meal
• I do well on a test
• I can hear the rain pounding on my windows and I can hear the thunder roll and I can stay home and relax because I don't have to go anywhere
• I go on vacations
• Its quiet
• I can take a nap
• I get hugs from my husband. He's the best hugger, ever!
• Its cold outside (is it October yet?)
• I drink Chai Lattes
• I drink Caramel Lattes
• Grace makes pictures for me

Tonight is Grace's Kindergarten Graduation. How cute! I can't believe she'll be a First Grader in the Fall. Yikes....time flies!

My Computer

A little over a week ago, my computer crashed. I was able to turn my computer on, but after it VERY slowly loaded up, I was only able to do a few small things. I was not able to do anything in Windows, which included shutting the computer down properly, check my email, etc. I ran a diagnostic test on it which indicated I had an issue with my hard drive failing. I called Dell, told them the code I received from doing the diagnostic test and they just confirmed my address and sent me a new hard drive with no questions (guess they thought I knew what I was talking about, ha ha!). Ray and I decided that I would just increase my hard drive space and buy a new hard drive at Comp USA, and use the one Dell sent me as my external hard drive instead. After getting my new hard drive, format it, reinstall Windows, load up all my drivers, figure out why my wireless card was not enabled and fix it, figure out why my sound wasn't working and fix that, then I had to transfer the data from my old hard drive to my new one by plugging it into my computer as an external drive and I also upgraded the size of my RAM. Phew! It was exhausting. But I did it. I almost threw my computer out the window a few times, but its done and its working and I'm glad its finally over. Hopefully I won't have to do this again for a LONG time. :)

Experiment

I decided to conduct an experiment tonight.

Perhaps I should back up a bit and give you a little background story. A while ago I noticed that when I ate just a few Pistachios, I would start getting a reaction in my throat, mouth and ears. I've tried to eat them several times after and its been the same every time. Then one night not too long ago, we had a jar of almonds, macadamia nuts, and cashews. I ate some, and soon realized I was having the same reaction. I was pretty certain that it wasn't the almonds or the macadamia nuts since I eat them more often than other nuts and have never had a problem. I started googling online, and soon realized that apparently people who have a reaction to pistachios have a cross reaction to cashews. Basically that means you can have a reaction to something and have a reaction to something else that is different, but similar to what you had a reaction to. Cashews and pistachios belong to the same family, Anacardiaceae, which also happens to be the family that Mango belongs to, however, I just ate Mango a few weeks ago and was fine. But there is a popular cross reactivity between the Cashews and Pistachios.

So my experiment was that I purchased a jar of Cashews from the store to eat to see if I got another reaction. Now basically, I had made note that in the jar of mixed nuts I had a reaction to not too long ago had contained some oils I was not familiar with, and hoped that was what causing my reactions, so I made sure to purchase a jar of Cashews that did not contain that same oil. Well, folks, its true, I am DEFINITELY allergic to Cashews and Pistachios. Goodbye Pistachios and Cashews. I will miss you. I will now make friends with Benedryl.

Bullet Updates

• I went up to see Wendi, John, Isaac, and Elijah a week and a half ago.
• I FINALLY got to meet my little Elijah
• I FINALLY got to hold my little Elijah
• I went to Isaac's first birthday party
• Nate now asks everyday to go see Uncle John, Aunt Wendi, Issac and Elijah again
• Nate is fully potty trained, but just can't seem to stay dry at naps and bedtime consistently
  
• I just cleaned out the kids closet and reorganized it
• I am about 96.5% done with the kids' entire room
• The hall closet is next
• Then its our bedroom closet
• Ray and the kids served me breakfast in bed on Sunday for Mother's Day
• Then Grace knocked over my milk onto the floor
• So breakfast in bed became breakfast out of bed
• But thats ok
• I need to restart my diet
• And I need to drink more water
• And I need to work out
• And I need to go back to the gym by June 1 or I have to cancel my membership
• I need to go read my Microbiology lab experiments for Thursday
• So I am ending my blog entry for today
• I'll try to blog again soon, but we all know how that goes :)