Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Work is slow

I'm starting to get worried. Work is so slow, in the eight and an half years I've been here I have never seen it this slow. It worries me mostly because my parents own the business so if something were to happen they would loose their income. The economy is just so bad right now. I even worry about Grant's job. He's doing great there and they absolutely love him but what if they start laying people off? He's the "new guy" there. For now we are okay but I still worry, it's just my nature.

And if work isn't enough to worry about I've gained like 15 pounds since my wedding just three short months ago. Yep, I can't believe it either. This morning I actually had to resort to my "fat pants" that I had stashed in my closet when I lost 30 pounds last year. I really need to go back to the gym. I have a membership I just don't have the motivation. Anyone want to join me? I need a workout buddy bad!

Just another 3 days this week left of work (after the hour and 3 minutes I have left today) and then it's the weekend again. This weekend my mom is having a party at the Hampton Inn for everyone that booked a cruise for February. My mom is a travel agent (she owns her own business out of her home) and specializes in booking cruises. What she does is she'll find a cruise she wants to go on and then she'll have a bunch of co-workers and friends and family join her and they'll get a group discount (this is what Grant and I did for the cruise where he proposed to me). Anyways this weekend she's having a party, a "Meet & Mingle" if you will, and she asked me to help. Grant is taking pictures but I have the best job; I get to man the chocolate fountain. Yep that's right, I will spend a couple of hours right there in front of the fountain. It's a good thing I dug out my "fat pants".

Here's me in the attire my girls made me wear in the mall during my bachelorette party weekend.
Fun times!

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Happy Birthday Grant!

Today is Grant's birthday and it's been a wonderful day. We got to sleep in, which is always a precious commodity to both of us, we cleaned the house (which isn't so much fun, but now it looks great), his mom and sister and her husband came to visit and we all went out to lunch, and now it's just Grant and I and we're chillin' on the couch and watching T.V. I'm not watching so much as writing this blog but because it's his birthday he gets to pick what we watch and right now it's Gangland, one of is favorite shows. Later we may go over to a friends house for a barbecue, but for now it's just fun hanging out and knowing that we don't have anything that we have to do.

We just found out the house next to us is for sale. They're asking $160,000 for a four bedroom two bath. It's about 1300 square ft on a decent size lot. They're asking too much for it. It's a 1954 and it's never been updated. Really, it would not be good for us if it sold for that price. Our house is almost identical, we have the same floor plan but we've been renovating our house for the last two years. The problem? We're trying to refinance our house and we need it to appraise for close to $200,000. I don't think that will be a problem as long as this house doesn't sell before then. So lets hope that their house sits on the market until we're done refinancing. :o)

That's really all that's going on here. Grant is loving his job still and he's having a great birthday. Hope everyone else has a great weekend.

I would post another random picture but I'm on Grant's laptop right now and I don't have any pictures on it.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

It's Thursday!

I normally couldn't care less if it's Thursday but tonight is the season premier of my two favorite shows; The Office and Grey's Anatomy. Of course I'll have to record the Grey's Anatomy and watch it tomorrow night while Grant works late, but at least I get to watch The Office tonight.

Also, It's FALL! I love the fall, it's my favorite time of the year!

In other news, Grant is loving his job so far. Of course today is only his third day but still. And I still absolutely love commuting with him. It's going to save us so much money, and on top of that he's making a lot more money at this job. It was so hard with him being self employed because we never knew when he was going to get paid. His customers didn't always pay right away and let me tell you, it's not easy to pay the bills regularly when you don't know when you'll get your next paycheck. But things will be different now. And he's finally going to get medical insurance. YAY!

Since he got the job we've been talking about babies. We both agree that we're not ready for them right now, but we talked about starting to TTC (trying to conceive) next year when we're a little more financially stable. It's great that we have a plan though.

That's really all for now. But again, I'll leave you with a random picture:Grant's niece as a flower girl at our wedding. She was picking her nose during the ceremony then once she saw her grandma shaking her head no she quickly ate the booger. I also have pictures of her inspecting it and eating it, but I'll spare you. :o)

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Changes are coming

Sorry, I've been a bad blog. Very bad blogger. Trust me I've made several attempts to write a new post but I just side tracked so easily. So what are the new changes you're probably wondering? Well, Grant got a job! That's great news for us. It's not that he was unemployed before but he owned his own business and since the economy took a dump his business hasn't been doing so well. We were hardly paying our bills to say the least. Well now he officially makes more money then me. I'm glad too because that will help boost his ego. On top of that he works in the same town I do (about an hour drive from our house) AND he has the same hours I do, so you know what that means.....we get to commute together. We're both so excited about that (for now. Ask us again in another few months and that may be a different story). But YAY! So great things are going to happen, starting with the mortgage is going to get paid. Haha, only joking a little. :o)

Lets see, what else is new, Saturday is Grant's birthday. I don't think we're doing much, maybe just cleaning up the house. Weird I know, but it's his birthday and that's what HE wants to do. Whatever.

Sadly, I think that's the only news to report. I live a boring life I guess. And now I'll leave you with a random picture.

This is my friend ­Kaci and I (and her daughter Elly at the bottom). This was a normal picture before Grant decided to have a little fun with Photoshop)

Monday, September 8, 2008

Getting Healthy

My whole life I've been overweight so it's nothing new to me. Grant proposed to me in March of 2007 while we were on vacation to Mexico. A couple of weeks after we got back from vacation I was looking at some pictures from the night he proposed to me and I couldn't believe how big I was. I immediately jumped on the scale and couldn't believe what I saw. I had never in my life weighed that much. That day I decided to do something about it so I was going to try to cut soda out of my diet completely.

It was so hard at first, especially when we'd go out to eat because that's when I always wanted a soda. And it didn't help that Grant was still drinking them. mmMMMMmm Cherry Pepsi, how I loved it. But it's gotten much easier, in fact it doesn't even taste good to me anymore.

I've always heard that soda is one of the worst things you can consume so that made it a little easier to give it up. I won't lie though, I do have an occasional sip of soda, but never much more than that. I've been soda free for 1½ years now and I'm so proud of myself. I feel like I have control of myself again and that I have so much will power that I can do much more than just cut out soda. It almost makes me feel like I can do anything I want to do *sounds cheesy I know :) *

I have many other things I want to change about my diet now that I've cut out the soda. Grant and I have greatly decreased the amount of fast food we eat but I still don't cook as much as I'd like to (mainly because I don't have time) so that's another goal of mine. I've also recently decided to cut down on the amount of coffee I drink. We'll see how that goes.

So far I'm down about 25 pounds (I was down 35 pounds but after the wedding I gained some back). I would love to loose another 40, that's my ultimate goal. Wish me luck, because I need it.

Friday, September 5, 2008

TGIF!

I'm so glad it's Friday. It's getting harder and harder for me to wake up in the mornings and I finally figured out why. It's because it's get darker in the mornings now! It's much easier for me to get up with the sun rather than before it. UGH!

Well hopefully this weekend will be full of tiling the bathroom we're remodeling. Grant and I bought a fixer upper house about 2 years ago and we're getting ready to refinance it so we need to get that master bathroom done.

Okay, I'm off to work now. Wish me luck that I don't kill a customer or a co-worker ( ­Jenny you're safe, I'm thinking one of the guys in the shop rather).

Signing off for now;
-Kory

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Back Surgery Part II

This is part two to my back surgery (you can read part one ­here). I apologize in advance that this will probably be a long blog.

The decision to have back surgery was the hardest decision of my life. If you ask me if I'm happy with the decision I've made I honestly can't give you a straight answer. Why you ask? Well I still have back pain pretty much all of the time and I can't for the life of me remember what my back used to feel like. I don't remember what it is like to have a normal (well not really normal, but normal to me I guess) back. I don't think I'll be able to explain to you what it feels like after the surgery, but I will try. I can tell you though that I think that the pain before my surgery was worse than what I experience now. But I just can't say for sure.

I wish I had an x-ray of my spine from before the surgery but I can't find one. Just image a spine with a 49º curve to the right side. Yes, 49º. That is quite a curve. This picture will give you an idea:
My curve was similar to this but quite a bit bigger and located up a little higher. And if you notice that her shoulders are not level I have that same thing going on but for some odd reason it's opposite, my left shoulder is higher. Anyway, now that you understand my situation before the surgery, here's how it all went down.

My surgery was scheduled for Monday morning, and I had to be at the UC Davis Hospital in Sacramento bright and early at 6:00 am. Since Sacramento is two hours from my house my family, my best friend Tonya and I all got some hotel rooms and stayed across Sunday night. I'll never forget how upset I was that I couldn't eat or drink anything the night before when Tonya, my brother Troy and I found our way to a Mexican restaurant. Anyways, I'm over it now.

We got to the hospital Monday morning and I was a little nervous (looking back now I really should have been more nervous than I was). We were told that the surgery was going to take about 6 hours. They had me go back to the prep room where I get in a bed and wait for the anesthesiologist to come in. It wasn't a private room which I thought was odd, there were several other patients in there. I mostly remember an old guy in a bed near me that had had a heart attack and I assume he was going to have heart surgery that morning. They left me laying in that bed alone (well, with strangers in the room, but that doesn't count) and I was SO scared! Finally after what seemed like hours but was probably about 20 minutes the anesthesiologist came in and gave me a pill to help with my anxiety (I don't remember what it was though) and he explained some things to me (again I don't remember what though). I vaguely remember being wheeled down the hallway but that's it, I don't remember the operating room.

The first thing I remember after the surgery was being wheeled down the hallway towards the recovery room and looking up from the bed as it was going down the hallway and telling my doctor that I was laying on rocks. This is basically how the conversation went;

Drugged up Kory:"I'm laying on rocks."

Doctor:"No, you're not. You're fine."

Uncomfortable drugged up Kory:"Yes, seriously! I'm laying on rocks and it really hurts!"

Doctor:"It's from your surgery, it's normal. You're NOT laying on rocks."

Angry, uncomfortable drugged up Kory:"Listen to me! THERE ARE ROCKS UNDER MY BACK!"

I remember being so mad at that doctor because he didn't care that I was in such pain. It honestly felt like I was laying on a boulder! Do you want to know why it felt like that? Here's why:



Yep, that's my spine. There are two 12" titanium rods, 13 clips, 7 screws and 4 three inch long bolts all attached to my spine. Aside from all of that in my back I was also laying on drainage tubs and containers to catch the leakage. It's no wonder why I thought I was laying on boulders!

During the surgery, which actually took close to 8 hours, they straightened my back the best they could (there's still a curve if you look closely) then they removed bone from my right hip and fused it to my spine. The rods, clips and screws are there to make sure that my spine stays in the position they put it in. I was told that it takes 6-12 months for the spine to fully fuse so technically the hardware in my back is no longer of use. *I have thought about getting the hardware removed but I doubt that will happen*

The next thing I remember was like a dream. I was in the recovery room and I slightly opened my eyes and saw my mom walking towards me. She was talking to me but I couldn't hear what she was saying. I closed my eyes. I opened my eyes again and she was sitting next to the bed and still talking to me but again, I couldn't understand her. I closed my eyes. I opened my eyes again and she was gone. I closed my eyes. The next time I opened my eyes I saw my dad walking in front of my bed holding a stuffed animal that appeared to be a mouse. I'm sure you can tell from the picture below that it was clearly not a mouse. Drugs do weird things to you, I remember seeing whiskers on this thing I swear......

I also remember thinking that was very weird because you don't see mice as stuffed animals very often. My dad was also talking to me and I could make out him saying "I brought you something" but that was it. I closed my eyes again and the next time I opened them I was in my hospital room.


I spent the next 7 days in my room, which I shared with an elderly lady. Luckily I was next to the window. That was the longest week of my life. Yes I had a lot of family and friends visiting, but because the hospital was about 2 hours away from where everyone lived I spent a lot of time by myself.

I was in so much pain too. Luckily I had my morphine button for the first few days though, that helped. The only thing I wanted to do was sleep but that was impossible because the nurses had to come in every 30 minutes and check my drainage tubes and turn me (because I couldn't move by myself at all). On Wednesday, two days after the surgery, the doctor wanted me to get up and walk (I had a catheter so I had not even sat up in my bed until this point). I just thought that man was CRAZY if he thought I was going to get up and walk just two days after major back surgery. But he gave me a walker and I got up and walked. Oh man was it funny to be 23 years old and using a walker to walk past an 80 year old lady in the bed next to you.

The next day he had me walk down the hall with a cane. Then later that day a couple of doctors came in and fit me for a brace that I would be spending the next three months of my life in.

I continued to impress the doctors with how well I was doing. Saturday the doctor said that I would be able to go home the next day. I was so happy. On Sunday I was sent home with the following items:

*A cane (which my brother still has to this day. He calls it his pimp cane)
*A custom made back brace (which I got to sport around for 3 months)
*Drugs (well a prescription for lots of Vicodin)
*A bill for over $215,000 (not technically, but it did cost well over that. Luckily I had great insurance)

That was pretty much the scariest week of my life and I would have never guessed that it would have changed me so much. I think I'll stop this blog here write about my life after back surgery with some interesting facts about me in a blog some other day.

-Kory