No Better Today

Things seem even worse today. I can't stop crying.

I heard on the radio about an hour ago that there were 45 confirmed dead in Tuscaloosa and 446 still missing. I read that 8 University students had been confirmed dead. It's just devastating.

All of our family and friends are safe, but my heart is broken for the people who lost their homes and family members and friends. I can't imagine what they're going through right now if I'm this emotionally hurt.

Lee had a friend who had damage to his house in Tuscaloosa so he went to help him clean up instead of going to work today. I was going to go help, too, but Lee told me to just stay home. He said it was chaos and it would have taken me 3 hours to get there.

Tuscaloosa will never be the same again :(

Heartbroken

My heart is absolutely broken right now.

At about five o'clock yesterday afternoon a mile-wide tornado absolutely destroyed the city where I spent five of the best years of my life, the city that I still consider home.

All photos via tuscaloosanews.com

We live about 30 miles from Tuscaloosa right now, but I'm there for school every day and Lee works there. I was home all day yesterday because my school was canceled and Lee came from work at lunch [thank goodness] because of the threat of bad weather, but Lee's brother and sister and lots of our friends live in Tuscaloosa, so watching this monster on the news was terrifying. It went right by his brother and sister's apartments, but they're okay. Our friends are all okay too, but some had damage to their houses.

Here's a video somebody took from the parking lot of the mall. I'm not sure how the mall is still standing. I'm also not sure why this person was in the car filming this and not in a safe place, but it's an amazing [and terrifying] video. This thing was a beast.
The damage is horrifying. It looks like bombs went off in Tuscaloosa. It beats all I've ever seen.

The pile of rubble on the left was a Big Lots yesterday morning

So many cities in Alabama are absolutely devastated right now. I'm so thankful all my family and friends are okay, but heartbroken for those who lost their homes and family members/friends. What a crazy day.

If you're reading this, could you please take a minute to say a prayer for everyone affected by this storm?

on the mend

After being sick off and on for two weeks and going three days with no voice, I finally sucked it up and took myself to the doctor after school on Tuesday. They drew blood, swabbed for strep throat and flu, and took some x-rays...not fun! Then the doctor came back and told me I had walking pneumonia...again. I had walking pneumonia about a year and a half ago, and I'm just about tired of getting it! I felt a lot worse this time than the last time, though. So they gave me a steroid and an antibiotic shot, and four prescriptions to get filled.

I finished up one of my prescriptions today and I should finish another one tomorrow. I really don't like the way it's made me feel...I mean, I'm feeling better than I was, but I've just been kinda woozy and haven't had much of an appetite. I feel like it's affected my mood, too :(

I feel almost 100% better, I'm just still trying to get my energy back. I've gotten a lot of rest this weekend, but I still feel drained. I've only got four days of class this week, so hopefully I can get back to normal by next weekend!

I'm Pitiful

I've been sick for going on two weeks now. It started last Tuesday afternoon, and every time I've thought I was getting a little better I ended up getting worse. I can think of at least 3 nights in the past two weeks that I've gone to bed around 8:00. I got home from class Friday morning around 10:30 and got back in the bed and stayed there all day. I finally moved to the chair in the living room around 4:00. It's just really gotten a hold of me this time! Guess that's what I get for taking generic vitamins :(

I've felt a little better for the past couple of days, and I feel pretty much better today except I have NO voice. I sound pretty pitiful, but I feel a lot better. Yesterday we went to the store and got me some Mucinex. That's the stuff right there! I had never used it before but it has made a HUGE difference. We got that and some Hall's vitamin C drops. I've had so much orange juice lately I can't stand it anymore so hopefully the drops will help.

I think poor Lee has it worse than I do, though. He's not sick, but I've been pretty much out of commission, so he's done EVERYTHING around the house for the past week and a half. He's always helpful around the house, but he's done all the dishes and laundry, kept everything clean, taken care of me, AND done all his homework for school. I don't think he's had any time to just relax and enjoy himself, but he hasn't complained once. Gosh I love that man ♥

This is an old picture I found of us from May 2007...we had just gotten engaged about a month before :)

We're about to take advantage of the nice weather we've having today [and the fact that I'm feeling a little better right now!] and take the dogs for a walk, then it's back to do more homework!

Again?

We are having ANOTHER ice storm in Alabama! Well, I'm not sure if it can be called an ice storm just yet, but we are definitely having freezing rain and ice again today! That's two times in as many months in 2011. Crazy considering I had never even seen anything like it until this year.

I got out of class today at 3:15. Once class was over I got a text from my sister-in-law saying that she didn't have to go to work tonight (she works on campus) because of the weather and that classes were canceled starting at 3:30. Then I saw the email from the University saying that classes were canceled. Yeah. I got out of class at 3:15 and they canceled them at 3:30. Don't I have the best luck? ;)

I headed home right after class and I had to pull over on the way home because my windshield had iced over. I couldn't see at all. It was so scary!! We are just not equipped to deal with this kind of weather here in Alabama!

Lee was supposed to have class at UAB tonight from about 4:00 to about 10:00, and I thought for sure they would cancel them. But no. UAB did not cancel any operations tonight, even though the roads in Birmingham were pretty terrible. Lee was going to try to go to class, and he was headed that way, but he turned around when he saw a truck lose control and come flying down the side of a hill. The guy was okay but Lee said if it had been his car it probably would have been totaled. Scary!

So tonight we've just been hanging out relaxing. I haven't been feeling good all week, so I went to bed around 8:00 last night and I'll probably go to bed early again tonight. We're just gonna hope we don't lose power!

What I'm Loving 2.2.11

Happy Wednesday! I'm linking up with Jamie again this week for What I'm Loving Wednesday!

I'm loving that I got to have lunch and spend the afternoon with Lee yesterday, even though neither of us was feeling very good. We don't normally get to do that during the week, so it was nice :)

I'm loving that Tuscaloosa got a Gigi's Cupcakes last week! [Not really gonna help with the whole losing weight thing though!] I had heard how good they were, and I went for the first time yesterday. They were out of the two that I really wanted, so I ended up getting a Cookies & Cream for myself and a Midnight Magic for Lee. They were having a Valentine's special on a box of four, so I also got White Midnight Magic and Birthday Surprise.
Sorry this is such a bad picture, I took it in a hurry! But don't they look delicious? Obviously White Midnight Magic is on the left and Birthday Surprise is on the right. I didn't get a picture of the other two before we ate them, but they looked just as good!

I'm loving the pretty weather we had last weekend. It's rainy here now and getting cold, but at least we had a couple days of sunshine and temps in the high 60s. It sure was nice.

I'm loving my puppy dogs.

[So ridiculously spoiled!]

They bark at EVERYTHING and drive me crazy sometimes, but I sure do love them. They are always happy to see me, and I swear they know when I'm upset or not feeling good. We had to read Shiloh for my Children's Lit class last week, and there was a quote in there that pretty much summed up how I feel about my dogs:
"If Jesus ever comes back to Earth again, I'm thinking, he'll come as a dog, because there isn't anything as humble or patient or loving or loyal as the dog I have in my arms right now."
I teared up a little bit when I read that! I mean, they really do have all of these qualities ALL the time. Okay, maybe they're not patient ALL the time, but you know what I mean :)

I'm loving my family.

[This is pretty old, so I have a niece and two nephews missing in this picture, and my parents aren't in it, but we never seem to get pictures of my whole side of the family when we're together!]

I am so blessed to have been born into and to have married into such a wonderful loving family. They are my support system and my best friends, and they mean the world to me!

HIMYM Wisdom

Sadly, I had never really watched How I Met Your Mother until a few months ago. I watched every once in a while when it was on Lifetime, and then my awesome sister-in-law gave me the first season for my birthday. I was hooked. Lee kinda has this rule that when we start watching a new show we have to watch it in order, so if we started watching season 1 on DVD when season 4 was airing on TV, we'd have to catch up on DVD before we could watch on TV. I usually go along with it, but I refused to do that for HIMYM. So we're watching them all out of order. It's just such a good show!

Besides being really funny, the show has some pretty wise quotes. I'm going to start posting some of the quotes sometimes as they stick with me. This quote is from the Thanksgiving episode of the first season:

"Life has plenty of good parts. It's the rough parts that make you thankful you have people to share it with."

It's always good to have people you love with you during the happy moments in your life, but it's the not-so-happy moments in your life when you need somebody. Those rough times are when you find out who your friends really are, and it makes you thankful you have those people in your life.