Bad ideas...

Well, according to Andy (and his friend Byron), I've set a baseline here. Apparently my blog site is the baseline of "updated least often" to which you can compare all other blogsites. It's good to be the queen of something.

My week started out really well! I spent Monday with Cooper, so of course that was a grand day! He and I started early and went to Brown Park to play for a while. He loves to hide these days, so it's really funny to chase him and keep up with him all the while pretending that you can't see him. We both found great fun in that. However, even greater fun was to be found in having Aunt Lolo pick Cooper up, put him at the top of the slide, then shove him down, only to repeat. And repeat. And repeat. That's good times! The problem with this doesn't really come in Lolo's exhaustion near so much as it comes in Cooper running and hiding once again, only to come back to the slide as "the stinky kid" on the playground. No one wants to play with the stinky kid, particularly Aunt Lolo. It seems, though, that Cooper is now at the age that diaper changing is no longer funny. No matter how many times the wheels turn on the bus, or the spider goes up that spout, diaper time is no longer tolerated with ease. The screaming kid getting his stinky changed on the park bench is also not a friend. Cooper, shape up!! CB and Andy, time to buy those cool diapers that you can change while the kid is still running and hiding! After all that excitement, we decided to meet Cooper's Daddy for some lunch. Now, Cooper's Mommy always tells me that Cooper is not really all that fond of chicken. However, I've found that if offered the right incentive (such as seasoned fried breading), chicken can in fact be one of Cooper's favorites. Sometimes it takes an aunt to figure these things out.

Now, in the beginning, I said that my week "started out really well". Monday was described above, Tuesday work went pretty well...then came Wednesday. I woke up Wednesday with a lot of allergy drainage and my stomach feeling pretty icky, so I made an impulse decision to call in to work. I really did feel yucky, but I knew I could overcome it. I just needed that day off. I enjoyed my day off once I started feeling better, and I was pretty much ready to go back to work. However, as the evening went on, I actually DID start feeling crappy. I started getting the tell-tale aches, pains, and sweats of a real fever! Sure enough, it was just over 100. Now that wasn't supposed to happen! I berated myself for giving karma a chance to come around and kick me in the butt, and I went on and called off work for Thursday (today). I went to bed, got a pretty good night's sleep, and woke up, wiggled around a bit to see if I was still achy, and BAM! It hit me...something caught in my neck and caused SHARP pain. I'm still not sure exactly what I did, but I hope to never do it again. I tried to go back to sleep, but couldn't get comfy. I finally popped a couple Tylenol and did my best to relax. I shifted from the bed to the couch, but I really was pretty miserable all day. My boss finally called in the early afternoon to ask if I was going to "grace them with my presence" on Friday. I had to say, quite honestly, that I doubted it! She voiced my own personal beliefs, that I should really bite the bullett and go to the doctor. Any of you know know my disdane for going to the doctor know that I really was in PAIN to even consider such. I finally decided the pain of getting up and getting to the doctor HAD to be less than laying on the couch for another 24 hours with the same pain, so off I went. He confirmed that I had pulled a muscle or something in my neck, and prescribed the good stuff. I now have a pain reliever and a muscle relaxer! Woohoo!! I took those early this evening and at this point, I must say I'm still in pretty great pain. The difference, though, is that I just don't care anymore! I'm in a bit of a daze. I'm currently planning on trying a day at work tomorrow, but if it doesn't work out, I'll be sure to hold the couch down again.

For a person who works a 4 day work week, taking of two of those days is kind of nice. If it weren't for the severe neck pain, I'd enjoy being a lady of leisure. Even better, next week I'll have my usual Monday off, then I'll be taking Friday off to go to Gatlinburg with the family. I think we're all really looking forward to that.

Thankfully, I think that's all I have to share for now. If I get REALLY motivated, I'll post pictures of Cooper's "Tuesday with Lori" soon. I might have to medicate again before I get that industrious, though.

Granny Said So!

Well, according to Andy, when Granny makes requests, things should happen. Granny's been hard at work this week it seems, because suddenly everyone's blogs are getting updated!

During all of the sadness and such with Hurricane Katrina, I really stayed pretty glued to the TV. When I was on the computer, I was busy reading all I could about what was going on. Those people are nowhere near out of the woods yet, but what's done is done. All we can do is continue to pray and help in whatever way we can find. They say there are silver linings to every cloud, and I guess for me, the silver lining in this great tragedy has been in seeing the outpouring of love and generosity from our entire country. It is so devastating to see all of those in need, but there are those few stories that come through of people truly giving their all for others that give a glimmer of hope for an often self-centered country.

All of that aside, I've been a busy girl lately. School is going well. The new clan is keeping me on my toes. They're actually a really good group, but I'm having a harder time getting attached to them because of it. I think it's usually the stinkers that you spend so much time with that you really get attached to.

I posted some new(ish) pictures on the Flicker account. A group of friends got together to go to the Brew at the Zoo. This was a wonderful event at the Louisville Zoo! It was sponsored by a local brewery, and it was a wonderful tasting party! There were three huge tents set up filled with tables representing tons of local eateries. For a flat donation, you could visit each table and eat til you dropped! We certainly got our money's worth. Furthermore, the cost included admission to the zoo itself, so we wandered down to the new Lorikeet exhibit and had a ton of fun taking pictures of everyone with the birds. Personally, I'm kind of creeped out by the whole bird thing (thanks, Granny), but I had fun watching all of them. The birds were beautiful and made great photos!

This weekend, I went camping with a group of friends from Louisville Mojo. Mojo is a Louisville based social website described as "free personal ads, events, classifieds, forums, chat, and more". It's not a personals/dating site, but is just a huge network of people who often get together for a ton of different activities. I've met a wonderful group of friends through the site and the places I've visited with them. All of the people seen in the Brew at the Zoo pictures are from that group. Anyway, five of us headed to Red River Gorge this weekend for a fun night of camping. Pictures of that will be coming in the next day or two, but I'm running out of steam. We had a wonderful time, and the area was really pretty. I'm not sure it was worth a 2 hour drive to get to camping, but I'm glad I can now say I've been there.

Today, Doug and I spent the day in Indianapolis! Doug, in his extreme geekiness, has been dying to get the new Ipod. I'm not really sure why he needs it, as he already has a couple, but I no longer question Doug's electronic and gadget needs. Apparently there is no store in Louisville that carries these little gadgets just yet, so Doug decided a road trip was in order. I agreed to ride along if he'd take me to the Indy Children's Museum. I've heard wonderful things about it. When we first got into town, we were starving, and just happened to come across a Cheesecake Factory. This is apparently a national chain restaurant that has been getting rave reviews. There is actually one opening very soon right here in Louisville. Knowing that the waits will be unreasonable when ours opens, we decided to give it a try today. I've never seen such an extensive menu at a restaurant. It was a huge book, complete with advertisements for other stores. Weird. We went with some recommendations from our server since we were totally blown away by the choices. There were two PAGES of appetizers alone! We went with the recommended Corn cakes and we were thrilled with them! There were three sweet corn cakes topped with spicy sauce, pico de gallo, tomatoes, avacados, sour cream, and more. These could have been a meal in themselves. Our entrees arrived, and neither of us put so much as a dent in them. We tasted enough to know they were both good, and had them boxed up. We then went on to the main anticipated course, dessert! One simply can not visit The Cheesecake Factory without saving room for dessert. Doug had a lo-carb cheesecake that even I liked! I'm not a cheesecake fan, but that was some pretty good stuff! I had a strawberry shortcake that I made Doug take a picture of. It was more than enough for 4 or more people, I think. It was topped with a mountain of REAL whipped cream. I was in awe. By the time we finished all we could stand, we still had a pile of dessert. I highly recommend this restaurant, but I'd suggest splitting an appetizer and then going straight to dessert.

By the time we finished all of that, we were definitely ready to walk around the mall for a while. We found the Mac store where Doug was disappointed to find out that they were sold out of the coveted Ipod we went for. After perusing this VERY posh mall, we moved on to check out the Children's Museum. This time it was my turn for disappointment. The museum was closed on Mondays! We'll have to do that one another time. We headed on back home, and Doug was nice enough to stop in Edinburgh at some outlets so that I could do a bit of shopping before heading back home. It was a really fun day even if we didn't accomplish anything!

Finally, when I got home tonight, I did something sort of drastic that has been a long time coming. I whacked off my hair. I've been saying I'm going to do it for a while now, but I kept putting it off. In the summer, I love having long hair so that I can just wash it and throw it back in a wet ponytail and go on to work. That's no so fun in the winter. Since Labor Day is officially passed, I figured it was probably time to start drying my hair before work. So...I got it whacked to just above my shoulders. It's not that great of a cut, but it's still tons better. I alwyas love how healthy it feels right after a cut. Don't worry Mom, I left it the same color, so there's no scary purples or anything this week.

I've spent way too much time here tooling about the net tonight, so I'm off to bed. This week already promises to be a fast one with plans almost every night. Staff meeting Tuesday, getting together with old O'Charley's friends Wednesday, an art soiree on Thursday (Mojo people again), and just maybe a free night Friday. I'm sure something fun will come up, though. Saturday, the Ma'am-George is going to be here sitting Cooper, so I'm sure I'll spend part of the day with them, then I'm heading to Bardstown for the annual Bourbon Festival. I'm really excited about going to that, as it's just one of those fun fall small-town festivals complete with a craft fair and bands and all of that stuff. I'll try to update with more pictures this week, but this is quite a big blog for now. Will it suffice, Granny? ;-)