Success!

Ah, much better!As a reward: peanut butter toast! Mmmm!

Fail.

I attempted to make a nice fluffy loaf of wheat bread for sandwiches yesterday. This is what I ended up with:

Woops. I swear I used to be a professional bread baker (and a darn good one at that!). I'm headed back to the kitchen to redeem myself...

Bye bye orthopedics!

I had my last appointment with the orthopedic specialist today for my elbow. He's done all he can, and I don't have to go back (actually I still have a physical therapy appointment, but hopefully he'll tell me the same thing next week)! He said I'll probably still have some pain and be able to make a little more progress with range of motion over the next 3 months, possibly up to a year. But other than that, it was goodbye/sayoonara/seeyalater!

His final words: "Come back and see us if it happens again." Let's hope not. Way to jinx me though...

Finally a little green...

I woke up yesterday to find some nice men putting grass in our ugly dirt yard! A little greenery will go a loooong way on our rather bleak little street. Yay! I hope it actually turns green soon...

Oh, guess what Corey gets to do today? Skip work and play in a work-sponsored golf tournament where he's encouraged to drink all day and have fun. Not too shabby...

This is so cool!

Japan Day

This past Saturday was "Japan Day" on base. Now if you're thinking, "Japan day? The base is IN Japan, isn't EVERYDAY Japan day?" then you share my sentiments. Yet "Japan day" it was nonetheless. I guess it's good for those poor souls who never leave the gates and don't otherwise get to see any Japanese culture or try any Japanese food. Anyway, we went and walked around for a bit. It was kind of cute actually, and if we had kids I could have seen staying there for a while as there were lots of crafty kiddy things to do and see. One really cool thing they had going on was a Taiko drum team doing a performance. I've decided Taiko drums are AWESOME and I kinda want to learn to play them! In person they're totally mesmerizing and I dig them so much! Here's a little 45 second video I took:

P.S. Thank you so much to everyone who sent along birthday wishes this weekend! I felt special. :)

Thrilled! (ish)

Backstory: A month ago I got some gum inflammation around an impacted wisdom tooth. They were adamant that I needed to have all 4 wisdom teeth removed as soon as possible, so they gave me a temporary fix to deal with the pain until they could schedule me for the extraction (a month later, aka today)... 

This morning I went in for my evaluation appointment to begin the process, and (after sitting in the chair for 15 minutes while a bumbling, kind of spacey dentist looked around for my file and tried to figure out what my appointment was for) I was told that they recently changed their policy and now the only person authorized to do extractions is the dental surgeon (thank goodness, because this random dentist dude did NOT inspire confidence...). However, they are so backed up now that it would be a long time until I could get an appointment with him, and my symptoms have gone away, so I was told to "just forget about it." According to him, I still have a few years until I'd be of an age that would make them worry about me recovering from the surgery, so "I should be good." If my inflammation comes back, I should rinse my mouth with hydrogen peroxide (ew!). Then he sent me on my merry way.

Now the procrastinating, dental-phobic avoider in me is ECSTATIC!!!! I've been dreading this procedure since I knew it existed, and I actually broke down in tears for most of an entire night when I found out it was time to face it a month ago. Now I've been officially approved to get out of it- WOO HOO!!!

However, the intelligent, rational, responsible bit inside of me (that my other side is trying with all its might to squash) is rather upset with this dentist, and knows I need to have this done. Before he told me to "just forget about it," the dentist gave me the spiel about how this can lead to recurring infections and bone loss and how it gets harder to recover from and more difficult to perform the older you get, blah blah blah. The fact that the first dentist I saw (who seemed much more competent) said I had no choice but to get them out as soon as possible makes me think the guy today was just brushing me off because they're crazy busy. I know the sooner I do it, the better. So I know I need to break down and make an appointment with the surgeon, regardless of what silly-dentist dude told me today. 

Plus, I'll have to do it EVENTUALLY, and if I do it while we're overseas it'll be free. At home, I'll have to pay. Blah. 

Also, if they changed their policy and weren't going to let silly-dentist do my extraction in the first place, why did they not cancel my evaluation appointment and reschedule me with the surgeon? There was no point in me going in today (or stressing about my countdown to doom for the past 4 weeks). Once he figured out why I was there, he said, "Oh, uhhh..." and then proceeded to explain everything. Stupid system.

I was happy when I started this entry, now I'm annoyed...