Great news.

It's looking like I'm going to get to graduate next May! I won't be in school forever! Yes, it was doubtful for a while.

Now finding a job, that's a different story...

Spring has broken.

Spring break was great. I went to a teensy little town in Arkansas with my family and some friends. I went canoeing, spelunking (kind of), hiking, and shopping. It was a wonderful week--a pretty action-packed week for a gal whose idea of a party is a chocolate shake and a chick flick. Here are a few pictures.




It was really a fantastic week. I bonded with my brother on the river. His exact words: "Kaci, you must be feeling really good today. You're fun!" Mom bought me a super cool antique watch at Emma's Museum of Junk. I meant to take a picture of that too. I took pictures of some elk with Dad. His were better, but only because he had a better camera.

And Will gave me his cold.

So a fantastic spring break is over, and I'm left with an awful cold. I never get colds, and this is the second one in two months. I thought colds were supposed to be easy. I have a "chronic" illness for crying out loud, yet it's a cold that makes me miss class. How's that for ironic? I guess it's all what you're used to.

My mom is parent of the year.

I'm so proud.

Cute.

I know I already posted about June once this week, but it's really all that's happened in my life. It's been one of those weeks where I go to school and come home and do homework and then go to bed. I lead quite an eventful life. I also know that June's Ellisville family is probably wondering what she's been up to. And maybe I'm becoming one of those people who puts dog stories and pictures on the internet--so what?

June has learned a new game. She throws her toy off the couch. I pick it up for her, and she throws it on the floor again. Over and over again. And all the time she wags her tail. I think she might be counting how many times I'll fall for it. Here are some pictures.

Good day for life, bad day for headaches.

Today hasn't been a bad day. I went on a field trip with one of my education classes. We visited a school that is doing some pretty cool things with technology. It was nice getting away from Starkville and my classes for a day. I got to sit in on four different high school classes and talk to some of the students and teachers. Being in a high school and talking to students and teachers really confirmed that teaching is what I want to do with my life--what I'm supposed to do. So all in all, it's been a good day.

Headaches always seem to ruin the best of days, though. I expected it to happen. It was raining when I woke up, I had to ride on a bus for four hours, I had to be engaged for seven hours, and high schools have really loud bells--all of which are triggers for migraines. I took a lot of pain medicine today to dull the pain to a tolerable level, but then I was in a sort of fog. So it wasn't a great day as far as pain goes.

I made it though, and that's what matters. I'm learning not to judge how good or bad a day or event or situation is by my level of pain. As long as I'm able to get out of bed and continue with my life, I can look past the pain. If I take my attention off my pain to a degree and find something else on which to focus, I can cope much more easily. It makes for fewer depressing days and a better quality of life.

So even though today has been pretty painful, it's been a good day.

June.

This week I decided to bring one of the family's puppies to visit for a week. She can't decide if she likes it here; nor can I. Living with just my roommate and me in my little apartment is a big change from living with four people and another dog in a house with a big yard. I thought having a dog would be the best thing ever. She's kind of stressing me out though. She feels the need to be in my lap constantly. Even when I take her for a walk, she wants me to pick her up. She won't eat. She won't play fetch. The dog is depressed. And I think her anxiety is contagious. Also, she's terrified of my roommate. When Joanna is in the room, June gets so close to me, there's no way she can even breathe. I'm just glad she isn't a big dog. Then it would be painful for me too. Poor June.

She is getting better. She got off the couch without me a couple of times--of course, that was before she realized another person lives here. That might have set her back a little. This is a traumatic week for her, to say the least.

Christian.

These are old pictures. They are pictures other people have taken and given to me within the past year that I have neglected my camera.

I went house shopping a month or so ago with my best friend Christian. One house we looked at had these beautiful curtains. We decided it was a great photo op.







This picture was taken almost a year ago at Christian's brother's graduation. It was one of those rare occasions either of us dressed up so we had to take a picture to commemorate.






Christian's a pretty cool kid. You should meet her if you get the chance. She's a lot like me, only taller. And she likes eating sushi and riding horses. All of this is to say: my best friend, she's wise. See for yourself.

Change is good.

I guess I'm bored with my life lately, so I keep thinking of ways to change it. The most recent disconcerting moment in my life happened yesterday when I picked up my camera and realized the last time I took any pictures was in June. I decided to take action and to start once again documenting my life in photos.

This is picture number one. I call it Spring.


Spring at MSU means daffodils. I love it. Yellow is the happiest color. Yellow flowers make me smile. I saw this happy yellow daffodil and smiled and realized, it's spring!

The honeymoon is over.

I take a medicine called Topamax for my migraines. It does wonders. It's how I live some resemblance of a normal life. I started taking it about five years ago or so. Every time I increased the dosage, it would work great for a few weeks and then my headaches would come back as bad as ever. I just kept increasing the dosage every time my brain beat the medicine. After four years of doing this however, the dosage got pretty high, as you might imagine. So high I was crying over not having a bathtub at school and forgetting to put windows in the buildings I designed. Which was a problem. Needless to say, I decided to quit the Topamax for a while. I'm back on it now a year later. It was helping tremendously for a while. But I think I'm at that point again where the honeymoon is over, so to speak. I was hopeful that it wouldn't come this time. But it has. It's here.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah... One more proactive thing I did was get a proactive haircut. In a moment of revelation, I realized it isn't in any way practical for me to have long hair when any kind of weight on my head/neck/shoulders gives me a headache. So I now have short hair. Problem solved. Kind of.

Being proactive.

I'm not only making an attempt to be more positive, but more proactive as well. I'm learning things about myself and about life with migraines and accepting that maybe life just has to be a little different for me. Not bad, just different.

The first proactive thing I've started doing is going to bed at the same time every night. That seems like an easy one, but in college things happen late at night. Last night, for instance, my roommate invited me to go somewhere at 10 PM. I had to be lame and say, "No thanks. It's past my bedtime."

I am also trying to start exercising. I get easily discouraged when it comes to exercise. I get tired super fast. Before my migraines got really bad I was in pretty good shape. I mean, I couldn't run a marathon, but I could run a mile or two. And I could walk all day and not be phased. Now sometimes I have to take a break halfway up the stairs in my apartment. I need to work on that though. I miss things like dancing and riding a bike. So I've started walking. Right now I can't walk fast or far, but it's something.

There are several other little things I've started doing with my new proactive mindset. I'm more careful about how I eat, knowing the way I eat affects the way I feel. I wore my sunglasses during class the other day. The teacher stopped in his lecture to laugh at me, and then the whole class turned around and laughed, but it kept me from getting a migraine from the sun coming through the window. I've started making sure I have headphones with me and putting them in when it gets too noisy around. I drink water like it's my job, knowing being even a little dehydrated will trigger a migraine. And so goes the list...

I'm working on it. I'm at a point now where I'm no longer in denial. It's nice. It's a good place to be. And I think my little head appreciates it too.

I am tech savvy.

I've had brilliant luck with electronics this weekend, and by brilliant I mean horrid. First my computer became involved in some promiscuity and didn't use protection. Needless to say it got an STD, or a virus if we're speaking in computer terms. I woke up Sunday morning to find 51 Internet Explorer windows open to porn sites.

To make matters worse, while my computer was lusting over internet porn, I dropped my phone in the toilet. Brilliant. Told you.

So now for the good news... Rather than paying someone to fix my computer I turned to internet forums and fixed it myself. It's working wonderfully. He hasn't done anything dirty since I fixed him. I think I'm just going to have to keep him on a tighter leash. As for my phone, I used Mason's put-it-in-a-bag-of-rice-to-let-it-dry-out trick and it's good as new. I'm glad I have an irresponsible brother to teach me tricks like that. Thanks, Mase. And if you need any help with waterlogged phones or lusting computers, turns out I'm pretty tech savvy.