When It Rains...

Where did that saying come from? Anyone? Ryan, you'll know... Anyway, the saying goes "When it rains, it pours." And while I don't feel like I am at my whits end, it has been one of those last couple of weeks. Let me fill you in since I have become so bad a doing that lately.

Maybe about two weeks ago I went to turn on my already dumb computer and I was immediately directed to a black screen with Courier like font saying something along the lines of, "Media connection not found... blah blah blah" and then it would go back to the black screen and repeat until I turned it off... Awesome! Broken computer. (sarcasm is hard to type but I hope you get the idea). So I took it into Fry's and had them run a diagnostic (that would cost me $69.99) with the small hope that it was only a minor problem and could easily be fixed. Unfortunately before my computer was even fully checking in, they told me it was a bad hard drive and I should replace it. I told them I didn't want to do that yet and had them finish the diagnostic to see if anything could be saved... Turns out it was a bum hard drive and I could buy a new, pay to have it installed, and pay for them to install windows back onto my compuer for somewhere around $400. Seeing that the computer was only $700 new, I am pretty sure it's not worth it... Luckily I got smart a few months back and started backing up my computer in the event that it would one day crash on me. I am just praying that the backups worked and my music is on that external hard drive. I think I would be much more sad if my music was gone.

Well that brings me to last week and my Salmonella scare. I came home Sunday night from work, super tired and with a small headache. After dozing on the couch for about an hour, I went to bed at 7pm and slept until 9am. I felt better in the morning after getting all that sleep and so I went to Ventura and ran some errands (including dropping off my laptop at Fry's). One of my errands included a stop at Trader Joe's to pick up some stuff for Home Group that night. Seeing that it was almost 1 in the afternoon and I hadn't eaten breakfast or lunch, I picked up some mixed nuts to eat on the way home. After a couple of handfulls of nuts, I started to feel super sick to my stomach and my headache came back in full force. When I got home I crashed onto the couch and slept for 3 hours. I felt sort of drunk when I woke up (you know the feeling when you have slept so much that you wake up and you aren't totally sure what's going on?) but my stomach was better so I made my salad and got in my car to go to Home Group. Backing out of the driveway, I forgot about the Chrysler in the driveway (which was dumb because it is always there and I knew it was there because I saw it there) and I backed into it giving it a great 2 foot red stripe down the back fender and giving my car a couple of dents and white stripes on my back fender. I went into the house and told my mom that I backed into the Chrysler and appologized to her and Janae. My mom asked if I was ok to drive and I said yes, I was just being dumb and not paying attention. Tuesday I found out that there was a small Salmonella outbreak in pistachio nuts which freaked me out a little since the mixed nuts I ate had pistachios in it. My mom immediately put me on detox with juices and lots of water. While I had a headache all of Tuesday and Wednesday, I didn't start to feel nauseous again until Thursday morning. Despite feeling a little ill, I went down to Biola with Holly and Mallory to help do some summer staff interviews. It was super fun to hang out with Holly and Mal and meet some of the people who could potentially be part of my summer staff family, but I was kinda feeling terrible the whole time. As the day went on, I just started to feel worse and I barely made it home before... well, you know what happens when you are nauseous all day. You don't need to know the details. I went straight to bed (6:30pm) and slept until 7:30am when my mom woke me up to check on me. I still had a terrible headache and was a little nauseous so I slept for a couple more hours before deciding that I needed to get up and shower and see if I could make it to work. I did make it to work which was sort of painful, but by the end of the weekend, I was feeling much better (minus the headache that seemed to last all week and would not go away even with medicine... wierd). I don't actually think I had Salmonella, but it was an interesting coincidence that I got the "flu" after eating some potentially contaminated nuts...

Hm... What else? Oh, then sometime last week (I think Thursday-ish), my "check engine" light came on in my car and I started to notice all of the little quirks my car had and I realized I should probably take it in to make sure nothing was wrong with it. $125 later I find out that the gas cap wasn't on tight enough causing some minor leaks.

This post seems pretty whiney (and it kinda is) but there is good. Thank God I got smart and backed up my computer ahead of time. Thank God I am alive and if I had salmonella or didn't have salmonella, it wasn't worse than it could have been. Thank God it was only the dumb gas cap that wasn't on all the way and it wasn't my transmission or something that would cost me a lot more than $125. For now I am enjoying a relaxing Spring Break with Janae (and I think Sarah is coming home tonight... Sister Fro-Yo Barge?). I have the next two weekends off of work, which means I actually can go to church on Easter Sunday and spend time with my familia. Next week I am working Outdoor Education at Forest Home which I am SUPER excited about! I get to teach a drama class to a bunch of 5th graders one day along with lifeguarding, tie-dye, climbing wall, zip-line, campfires (my ultimate fav!), and all of the wonderful things of camp life that I love! After that there are only 6 more weeks at OVS, then I move into Forest Home for the summer! It's kinda crazy but I am super excited about what God has planned for these next few months of my life!