The Cock Knob

I know I have been such a blog slacker these days. Life has just been so incredibly busy, at home and at work. I’ve been trying to work hard to be ready for Christmas and I have been sick. One of the reasons for the lack of blog posts is the delay of getting pictures downloaded. You see, for Christmas Darin and I decided to splurge a little and buy ourselves a really nice family Christmas present. We both love photography and wanted a really nice SLR digital camera. So we took some money out of savings and got a killer deal on the new Cannon T1i. And I can’t say enough how much I love this camera! But with it being so nice, I have hesitated bringing it into work to download pictures. I finally did it, and promise to get some new posts added soon. Because there is a lot to blog about!!

In the mean time, I have a funny little story to share with you. When Krystal, Noni and I lived together, we had many little adventures that all turned into inside jokes. I didn’t blog back then (but now wish I would have) but we wrote down a lot of our inside jokes so we could remember them later. The following is one of our stories.

In the winter of 2007, three roommates had an outing planned to go out to lunch for a Christmas celebration. When coming home from the luncheon, they planned to exchange Christmas presents. Courtney decided that they needed a little atmosphere during the festivities and since they moved in during the Spring, they never got the opportunity to use the lovely fireplace in the living room. So she decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to try out the fireplace. Being a gas fireplace and not knowing exactly how to turn it on, she decided to call the complex’s office and inquire as how to set the proper mood. While on the phone with the office worker, she was asked if the pilot light was on. Of course not knowing if it really was or not and not wanting to sound like an idiot, she lied and said, “Yes.” Further instructions followed that if the pilot light is on, all you have to do is flip the switch and the fire will start. Sounded easy enough.

So Courtney walked over to the fireplace and yells up to Noni, “Do you know if our pilot light is on?” Noni is not sure, so Courtney does the most rational thing and calls her sister at work to ask if the pilot light is on. Krystal doesn’t think so, but doesn’t know for sure. So Courtney decides to look in the fireplace to see if there are any instructions for the pilot light. On the side of the fireplace wall, is a lovely set of instructions on getting the fireplace started. Now is when the fun begins. While reading how to get started, the instructions state, “Turn the cock knob to the right”. The what? Yes, the cock knob! Immediate laughter escapes her lips and she yells up to Noni, “Do you know what a cock knob is?” Noni is instantly entranced by the wonderful new word to our vocabulary of jokes, but doesn’t quite believe it is actually true. She comes down to examine the instructions herself, and sees clearly written on the wall “Cock Knob”. Can it get any better than this? I don’t think so.

Krystal gets home from work and we tell her all about the cock knob and ask her if she knows what it means. Of course none of us do. I mean, how do you go about finding the location of your cock knob? I’m sure in this type of situation where flames are involved, proper recognition of the cock knob is vital. So we resolve to go to our only source left; Jason. I call him up and ask him if he knows what a cock knob is and if so, how do you find it. Being a big brother, he immediately breaks into hysterics and the fun starts all over again. Needless to say, we never did find the cock knob, but that doesn’t stop us from looking!

Skip ahead to 2009. When Darin and I first moved into our apartment, our pilot light was lit. And I finally saw what a it was supposed to look like. We used the fire once or twice because it was a cold Spring this year. But in the early summer our niece blew out the pilot light thinking it was a candle. So we haven’t been able to have a fire since then. Which was fine because it was warm then and we didn’t need one. But now that it is cold and almost Christmas, I have wanted a fire. So last night we found the matches to try to figure out how to relight our pilot light. I was terrified with images of an exploding apartment running through my head, but tried to have confidence in Darin’s abilities. Darin started reading the instructions and guess what? It also talked about the cock knob!! What the heck? And being the genius that he is, Darin found it and got it to work!! For years I thought it was just a crazy Broadmoor thing, but I guess all gas fireplaces have a cock knob. It was nice because we started the fire and had the lights out and the tree lights on with Christmas music in the background. It was so cozy and wonderful. Thank you Darin for finding our cock knob!

Doctor, Doctor…give me the news

Last week I got an email from Darin that he had made me a doctor’s appointment for Tuesday and he hoped it worked with my schedule. This came as quite a surprise. You see, I have never really had regular doctor’s visit and we didn’t grow up with a family doctor. When Darin got really sick after vacation, he went to his family doctor and they were really great. Darin asked them if they would accept me as a new patient and I was accepted.

I have had headaches practically all my life. I blame my mother for this. Something I didn’t want to inherit from her! I’ve just learned how to manage them and have basically lived with them. Darin hates that I get headaches so frequently and he wanted to know what was wrong. Well, about two weeks ago, my headache changed and I started getting sharp pains above my left eye. The pain would last about 3 seconds and then go away. This occurred every 3-15 minutes for about 2 days straight. The pain was numbing when it happened, but when it went away, I was okay and my headache would feel normal again. Darin was ultra worried, even though I tried to calm him down and say it would be okay. He didn’t believe me and made me an appointment.

We went to the doctor on Tuesday and they gave me a regular new patient exam to see how everything was working. I talked to the doctor about my headaches and my irregular menstrual cycles. We talked in depth about what was going on and she said that I needed some blood work done. I had blood work done at my pre-marital exam in March, but all my levels came back normal, my thyroid was good and they said to just watch them and let them know if I continue to have problems. Before I got married, my cycles started to get more normal. But after I got married, they stopped completely and I wasn’t pregnant. This made me very concerned because Darin and I would like to start a family soon, but I wasn’t ovulating. But I didn’t want to go back to the OBGYN because I didn’t want to be put on birth control. And so many doctors are birth control happy these days. I’ve just seen so many girls, my sister-in-law included have negative side affects to birth control and I wanted none of it.

So my new doctor said she was going to run a couple tests on me to see what could be causing it and they would also do a pregnancy test just in case. She was also concerned about my headaches and the recent change I’ve been experiencing and she suggested I have an MRI. After they finished taking my blood, they scheduled the MRI for later that afternoon. I was a little nervous that they thought it was serious enough for an MRI, but Darin and I also agreed that knowing is better than not knowing.

The MRI experience was okay, but I can totally see how you can freak out in those things. Lying still in a tube is almost like being in a coffin! They gave me headphones to listen to music, so I got plenty of their choice of easy listening. Nothing like Whitney Houston, Faith Hill and Mariah Carrey to make the tube experience better! The technician talked to me after each test to let me know how long each scan would be. After the first two scan she said everything was looking good. Then she stopped saying that. At the end she said that they would have my results to the doctor tomorrow. I really was hoping she was going to say that they looked good again, but she didn’t. That night the doctor’s office called me and scheduled my appointment to go over the test results for Thursday. I was nervous, but still pretty confident that everything was going to be okay.

So last night we went to the doctor and he told me that the MRI was negative and everything looked good. Phew! I do have chronic sinus pressure, so that just means I have allergies. Then he got on to the lab results of my blood work. Everything on the first page looked great. All my levels were normal, I wasn’t diabetic, and it was good. The second page wasn’t the same story. My estrogen levels are too low. Basically my body is acting like I just got off my period, when my last period was in September (and before that, April). My testosterone was normal, but higher than my estrogen and my body is producing too much DHEA Sulfate (should be no higher than 380 and I am at 437). The doctor basically said that my body has an inhibitor that is blocking the insulin it is creating from being absorbed into my body. And that could be the reason why my other levels are off and I am not ovulating regularly and I have a mild case of polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. So in order to cure me, they have to treat me as if I were a diabetic so the insulin will start to absorb. They are putting me on Metformin and my cycles should start to become regular in about 2 months. I am also supposed to keep a headache journal and mark days I have a headache and rate them 1-3. He thinks there is a correlation between my cycles and my headaches. I have a follow-up visit with him in 3 months. So let’s hope this medicine makes me normal again.

I am just so grateful for modern medicine and they can run tests to see what is wrong with our crazy bodies. I am also so grateful that not one word of birth control was mentioned. And I am so grateful to my husband who takes such good care of me. If it weren’t for him making the appointment for me, I wouldn’t have known what was causing my problems and it could have taken longer to fix me and for us to become parents.

Our old school get together

I was a part of the Mountain View 9th ward for 2 years. They were absolutely the best two years of my life. I made so many wonderful friends in that ward and I met my husband there. But as it always happens, people start to leave the ward and move on, either because of marriage, school, moving or unfortunately…age. But that doesn’t mean you still can’t get together and enjoy your friends. We don’t all have to scatter to the winds! Caron and I were emailing each other and saying how we missed all our West Jordan friends so much. Caron suggested a big get together over dinner. I loved the idea and Caron graciously arranged it.

I was hoping that a lot of people would come so we could all see each other again. We had an AWESOME turn out! There were 25 of us and 2 babies. There were 7 couples and we determined that all the couples except Garrett and Hayley met in the ward. But Haley joined our ward after they got engaged, so she was a MV 9th ward member too! And sadly, we also determined that only 4 out of the 25 were still in the ward. We all really did scatter recently.

Dinner was great! The company was great. The Chili’s staff was great! Especially because we had one long table of rowdy friends. Luckily I remembered my camera, so we got a lot of fun pictures.

Being the only person with a camera, I passed it along the table to have people take pictures. You end up with some interesting finds on your camera that way!

And it just wouldn't be complete without my very own "Garrett Self Portrait"!!

Thank you Caron for arranging this. I know we all had so much fun. Let's make this a tradition and get together often. Love you guys!

The evolution of facial hair

The week before Halloween, we decided on our costumes and Darin started growing some facial hair to look more authentic as a farmer. I thought he looked great with his cute little beard, but at the same time, it poked me. So it wasn't staying. The day he shaved it off, we had some fun with a little photo shoot.

The full beard - ruggedly handsome!

The goatee. Gross! It reminds me of Murray on Flight of the Conchords.

The handle-bar stache - yet again, gross! Although, I think Darin had a lot of fun with this one!

The mustache. Oh my, it just keeps getting worse!

Can we say serial killer?

Oh there's my handsome boy! Much better!

Him's so cute!

Permit us

When Darin was on his mission, his family went into the woods and cut down their own Christmas tree. Still bitter about not having the experience, Darin really wanted to do it this year. So the Brady family has decided to celebrate Christmas Griswold style!

We got all the information online about when the ranger stations would be selling the Christmas tree permits and asked who would like to join us. Several family members were interested, so we made all the arrangements to go early Saturday morning. The site said they would sell the permits from 8:00 to noon and they would be selling 1000 permits. The only reason we got there early was because most of us had a full day of plans anyway. We left the house at 7:00 and got up to Midway around 8:00. When we got there, this is what the line looked like!! We had absolutely no idea this was such a big deal! They handed us a wristband and said that we needed one to get the permit. When we got ours, they were almost gone. Thank heavens for getting there on time! Just shortly after we got ours, they had to start turning people away.
Not knowing we would be waiting in an hour long line, we didn't really dress appropriately. But thank heavens I had 2 pairs of gloves, one for me and the not so girly pair for Darin!

Luckily Kristen came prepared. My cute little niece Natalie was all bundled up and having a great time!

We were able to get our 4 permits (next time we'll know to be early and not just on time!) and they were only $10 each. Not too bad for a Christmas tree. But it's not really about the cost savings, more about the adventure we'll be having finding that perfect tree! I'm so excited about our first Christmas as a family!

Noni's present

For Noni's 30th birthday party, she wanted to keep things pretty low key. So just a couple of us gathered together on Saturday night to celebrate. Noni LOVES Cinderella, so I wanted to make her something princess themed this year. Krystal got her tickets to Disney on Ice Princess Classics (and we are all so excited to go!). I embroidered this fun saying and then sewed on the border with some fun fabric I found. I bought a wood frame at Roberts and painted it, sanded it, and antiqued it. The batting I used for the middle wasn't giving it enough depth, so I also put some poly fill stuffing in there too. Just to make it stand out a little more. I think it turned out adorable!! It is a little hard to see the glass slipper in this picture, but trust me, it is cute!
Noni loves heath cake, so she requested it from Krystal!!

Here she is opening my present! I'm so glad she liked it!

Happy Birthday Noni

I just wanted to send a birthday wish to one of the COOLEST girls I know!! Noni is now officially old - she's 30 today!! Thank you Noni for being my very bestest friend and for always making me laugh til it hurts. I love all the fun memories we've made and all of our inside jokes. Happy Birthday Nonikins!!