2 Years

AJ and I celebrated our 2 year wedding anniversary this past week. Yayy gooo 2 years!!

We both agreed that our first year of marriage seemed to go by so so fast and we were kinda shocked when it was time to celebrate it. But this second year seemed to go by just right. It didn't seem to go by fast or slow, it just seemed like yes, it has been another year, let's celebrate.

On the actually day of our anniversary we were up in PA. The day consisted of lots of fun events like taking a bus tour around Pittsburgh and a nighttime river boat cruise which were all fun and great but they also involved bunches of other men doing those activities with us. So on Friday night once we were back home, we decided to celebrate 2 years of wedded amazingness doing something intimate and alone that is very special to our hearts, well really my heart. AJ drove me an hour and a half to the nearest Steak n' Shake. Let's just say my husband knows what his wife likes and knows how to make her happy. I love him.

We also took our now annual wedding anniversary photos.  I hope we really make this a habit and continue taking random and informal pictures of ourselves on our anniversary every year. It would be so fun to look back at pictures of us just being us at the same time every year.

Here's some pictures of our 1 year wedding anniversary photo shot. Doesn't get more informal than pjs.......

and year 2's

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and there's a little too much AJ and Courtney for you.

Non-notable Monday

I'm sitting in the lobby of an early 19th century, beautiful hotel in Pittsburgh, drinking a pumpkin spice latte in the middle of the afternoon.

No I didn't run away from grad school.

No I didn't run away from AJ.

I actually ran after AJ.

AJ was sent by his work to compete in a diesel technician skills competition in PA this week and I was asked if I wanted to tag along. Umm hello! Yes! By some miracle I was able to work it out with school and my fake job that I pay lots of money to pretend to work for ie. internship and could join in on the fun. There are lots and lots of men here who are into anything with a motor.  and yes this means testosterone is heavy in the air. I've choked on it a couple of times. It helps to wear lots of bright colors and sparkles to counteract the male energy.

A couple of non-notable items:

-True story: Who knew Pittsburgh isn't located far outside of West Virginia? If you had asked me 48 hours ago I would have said " No silly, West Virginia and Pittsburgh are separated by at least a state of two." But no, they are close to each other.  This blew my mind. and it also just blew the mind of ever geography teacher I've ever had.

-September 22nd is so close. Why is this date important? It's so important because it's the official first day of fall. and this is important because I will finally allow myself the right to start wearing boots again. Believe it or not it's still the summer season right now people. Just cause we celebrated Father Labor Day on the 3rd does not mean summers really over. The type A personality in me refuses to wear boots till it is actually, really, 100% fall. I bought a pair of brown, leather boots at the beginning of August and have been giving them the "soon, soon my friend" look everytime I open the closet door. Am I the only one who is very particular about when you should officially rock fall clothing items? and you say "But Courtney, your drinking a pumpkin spice latte that's so fallish." I say food/drink doesn't count. I'd drink that delicious junk on the 4th of July if I could.

-Should I feel embarrassed when AJ and I walk into a really nice hotel carrying a cooler and bags of groceries for our stay? Does this make us cheap, a little redneck or just smart?

-When traveling, one seems to for whatever reason think calories and carbs don't matter or affect the body.  It's impossible for one to eat right when away from home. One is me. Give me another pumpkin spice latte and double up on the whip cream.

-I hate it when I buy a greeting card from a store and the cashier proceeds to read and comment on it. Umm it's not your business who's anniversary is coming up and it's definitely not necessary when I buy a card with a joke on it about beer (I know classy) for you to then proceed to tell me more jokes about beer sir. I won't name names but let's just say this place has the letters VCS in it. You know, I just want a little more consumer privacy especially when buying items at a pharmacy store. Because pharmacy stores carry scary, awful but helpful items that we all like to pretend don't exist. When at a pharmacy like store I want the cashiers to pretend to not be able to see anything I bought. Even better, I would like them to pretend that they never saw me. No small talk or questions needed. Just quick bagging please.

Half a Liebster Award

My pretty, funny and wise friend Heather from the blog http://madetolive.org/ nominated me for a "Liebster Award" thing. You can read more about what it is and a little about Zoom-lay-o here.  I'm going to answer half of what the "award" requires due to gosh honest laziness, lack of having 11 interesting/new things to tell you about myself and the fact that I really don't have 5 other blogs to tag. 

 

Check out her blog cause when I say she's pretty, funny and wise I mean it and her blog totally reflects it.

 

Heather's Questions For Me:

 

1. If you could rename yourself, what name would you choose?

 

I really like my middle name Evelyn. I think I would change it to that. Hi, I'm Evelyn Coppage nice to meet you. Yeah that sounds good, I like it. If I have a daughter one day there may be a big possibility that I name her Evelyn. But there may also be a big possibility that I don't name her that so yeah.

 

2. What are you secretly obsessed with?

 

Light string cheese. 60 calories and >1g carb. I eat it almost 2x daily. It's my go to. I'm on a constant look out in grocery stores for the brand of string cheese that's calorie and carb count is closest to that of water.

 

3. What does your morning routine consist of?

 

I'm not a morning person especially if it involves being woken up by an alarm clock. I always try to get as much as possible done the night before like showering, packing lunches, getting my school bag ready for the next day and having the coffee pot filled and set to go all with the goal of only having to wake up, do my make-up/hair, put clothes on, brush my teeth and grab something small to eat on the way out the door. I envy people who make themselves get up early enough in the morning so that they have some free and downtime before heading out for the day. I wish I could make myself do it. I'm too weak and sleep is too strong.

 

4. What station is your radio set to in your car?

 

1 of 3 things. A country radio station, christian radio station or COSMO radio (it's a satellite radio talk station).

 

5. What’s the strangest talent you have?

 

Truly, I'm really good at cleaning. When I clean I don't half ass butt it.

 

6. What was the last thing you ever got grounded or punished for?

 

I don't know it's been so so long since I was grounded or punished. I was such an angel growing up.... The only real last time I can remember getting in trouble was when I lied to my dad about where I was one night in high school. It wasn't even exactly where I was that was what I got in trouble for it was just that I lied and didn't tell the truth. If I was just honest from the start he probably wouldn't have been very mad.

 

7. Did you ever get a foreign object stuck in your noise? If so, what?

 

Haha no.

 

8. If you could work any job for a week, what would it be?

 

Interior designer. I was so so close to majoring in interior design in college but decided that it wasn't very recession proof and as stable as Speech-Language Pathology.

 

9. Have you ever walked into a men’s restroom?

 

No I use the women's.

 

10. What is the best compliment you’ve ever received?

 

A couple of years ago my cousin Katie and I were out in Georgetown, DC with a couple of girl friends just having a girls night out. After having dinner at a random restaurant, Katie and I went outside to wait on the street while waiting on our girlfriends to finish up inside. While waiting outside a couple of people walked by and looked at us and said "Look it's the Olsen twins."  I know, I die. Best compliment ever!!!!!! Any girl who grew up in the 90's loves and wants to be an Olsen twin. and yes I am fully aware that I don't actually look like an Olsen twin. The only reason the people said that was because Katie and I are both small sized petite girls but still best compliment ever.

 

11. What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever seen?

 

Canned meat.

Positives and I'll Deal with its of Type 1 Diabetes

D-Day=A little over 6 months ago

Positives

-I have this amazing new ability that allows me to either 1) know the number of grams of carbs any type of food has 2) look at a plate of any food placed in front of me and predict the number of carb grams that the plate has. It's like I have ESPN or something (shout out Mean Girls). This is a great party trick/get to know you game. Try me. Your mind will be blown. Boom.

-I can not be a grazing eater. I can't just snack and eat mindlessly. This is such a positive! It is so good for my health and weight! Noone should just sit in front of the tv eating randomness and not thinking about how many calories or carbs or fat they are putting in their body. Type 1 prevents me from doing this because I have to mentally be aware and calculating pretty much everything I consume or else my body, health and life are at risk.

-I am so intuned with my body now. I can feel when somethings not right and I know how to fix it.

Yeah, that number doesn't feel good.

-I never go hungry when out and about. I'm also the best person to sit beside if we are going to be somewhere for a long period of time. You know why? Cause my purse is always full of "just in case my blood sugar is low" snacks. If at a concert, graduation, speech, long roadtrip etc. those sitting next to me have the happiest bellys.

My purse on a normal day

-Being diagnosed with diabetes has made me feel vulnerable. Vulnerable in the sense that life is so fragile. Vulnerable in the sense that I am not in control. and it's ok. When you find yourself vulnerable and lacking any control in life it makes you grasp onto who is truly in control. It allows you praise the small things even more than the day before and allows you see the bigger things as even bigger than you could ever had imagined. What a blessing!

I'll Deal with It's

-My poor little calloused fingertips. I check my blood sugar between 8-10 times a day. That's a lot of poking, bleeding and healing going on leading to some tough and dotted fingertips. Not cute.

Well earned battle scars.

-Lots of doctor's appointments and blood tests. We are constantly getting co-pay notices in the mail, it's just never ending and expensive.

-Permanent medical equipment attached to my body. It's just annoying. But the positives of my insulin pump far far out way the annoyances of it. I will say that the most annoying part of my pump is when people think it's a pager. NERD ALERT! Who where's a pager. It's embarrassing to think that people could be thinking that I'm rocking a pager circa 1996. Yeah and my closet is also full of bright colored legging shorts and oversized sweatshirts. People seeing I'm wearing an insulin pump=not embarrassing. People thinking I'm wearing a pager=embarrassing.

Umm this looks nothing like a pager.......

I know it totally does.

-I've picked up this bad habit of drinking diet sodas. Before betes, I drank soda, both diet and regular, maybe 2 times a month total. I just didn't drink it very much cause newsflash: it's not good for you. With type 1 diabetes, I have to give myself insulin before I consume any carbs. "Well but Courtney, aren't breads, pasta and candy the only foods with carbs in them." No. No sir. Almost everything has carbs in it. Vegetables have carbs, fruit definitely has carbs, anything that is made with flour has carbs, chicken nuggets have carbs, lots of salad dressings have carbs, milk has carbs, wine has carbs, yogurt has carbs and so on. All these carb things, require me to calculate in my head the number of grams of carbs they contain and then how much insulin I need to then give myself before I eat them in order to prevent my blood sugar from flying high. You know what doesn't have carbs. Diet sodas. Diet sodas are one of the only "treat" like things I can put in my body without having to think about insulin. Being able to shove something in my mouth without having to think "I wonder if this is going to mess up my blood sugar?" is soooooo freeing. It makes me feel normal. I now drink 1 diet soda a day. I don't like that I do this.



-Dealing with the ignorance's of people. I tell ya, people just don't know what type 1 diabetes is. and it's totally ok to not know what type 1 diabetes is. That's completely fine. I don't know about a lot of diseases. You know what I do when I don't know enough about something? I either ask intelligent questions about it or I keep my mouth shut and don't say anything about the nothing I know. It is not ok to make comments about diabetes when you are not well enough informed to have a non-ignorant opinion.

-I very much dislike that Type 1 Diabetes and Type 2 Diabetes are grouped together. They are two completely different diseases. Yes they involve the same organ but the cause, treatment, maintenance and risks are so so different. I'm totally on the bandwagon that they should have completely different names. My life as someone with type 1 diabetes is completely different than the life of someone with type 2 diabetes. Nothing makes my blood boil more than someone comparing my disease to someone who has type 2. I'm sorry but I have a hard time relating to your 62 year old grandmother who has type 2 diabetes and checks her blood sugar maybe at the most once a day, takes medication orally in the morning and just has to "watch" her sugar intake. My day is a little bit different. My life is a whole lot different.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying the type 2 diabetes isn't a serious disease. It is a very serious disease. But it's just different.

Guess what?!?!?

If you hold the computer up to your ear right now you can hear the desert.

...............................................

It's just a whole lot of emptiness and nothingness around this blog lately.

I'll change it tomorrow.