All for 2 moles...

Life has been pretty mundane, so the most exciting thing I've been doing is getting skin biopsies done. Every 6 months I meet with my hematologist for a check up and he does a full body one over to check for abnormal bruising, etc. Last time he noticed some questionable moles on my back and told me to go to the dermatologist and get them checked for skin cancer. I had two large moles, one right above the other, on my back that the dermatologist checked and was also worried about them so she removed them and had them checked for melanoma. To reduce scarring we removed them both with one cut. But they had to make the incision really wide to be able to pull the top and bottom together. They to put 16 to 20 stitches in the under layer of skin and 16 stitches on the top layer of skin that spread about 2 inches wide. Needless to say, I was a little uncomfortable with those in...as you can see.

I did get the results from the biopsy and, thankfully, no cancer. However, the cells were atypical, meaning they could turn into cancer, so I have to go back in August to have the rest of the larger moles removed as a precaution (as you can tell from the picture, my back has 1 or 2). So I get to go through all this again. But it's better than cancer. Had I been thinking ahead I would have done all this during the winter, since I can't go in sun or bodies of water with all the stitches and scars, but oh well. Looks like we'll find out how well Mederma really works.

Oh how I like to procrastinate.

I've realized that I have a problem when it comes to blogging now. I don't want to write anything when something does actually happen (don't actually have a good reason for this), but really want to write whenever nothing is happening (I can't explain that phenomenon either). That is why I usually just write the highlights of the month and go on with my life.
The end of February I did a fashion show that was a fundraiser for Haiti. The idea was great, but it was very poorly executed. I won't go into huge details about it, but I'll say that given the chance to do it again--I would leave it. I did get to wear a cute outfit from Express however.

Cute Express outfit

At the beginning of March, my friend and her new hubby went back to China where the new hubby is finishing his Master's in International Finance. A group of us got together to have a going away dinner with them. We went to Oklahoma favorite Eischen's to get some fried chicken. It was delicious. Also in March, my friend Jeff, that is working in the Marshall Islands came home on leave and we were able to go out with him before he left. Also good times all around.

I had the opportunity to do a News 9 fashion segment again, which I love doing. We modeled spring dress fashions, which was great except that I did it on Tuesday afternoon, but I came down with bronchitis Monday morning. I told Jake I wasn't feeling well when he woke up for work Monday morning and within about an hour he already had scheduled a doctor appointment for me. Since I'm stubborn and Jake doesn't have the desire to see me back in the hospital, he does a good job making me go to the doctor. So I was able to get on antibiotics pretty quickly, so I didn't look sick for the segment, but it wore me out pretty quickly.

This week was Spring Break, which after you graduate loses a good 99% of its majesty. It is a very sad experience, which I expected, but didn't make me like it anymore. And it was pretty sad that neither Ashley nor Mike were able to come home. Other exciting news, since Mike works for Verizon he was able to hook my mom and I up with the new Droid phone. When that commercial says, "The Droid does," they are not kidding. It is crazy all the things that phone can do. So now I have another gadget that I can waste time messing with instead of doing something important.

And that's all that I can think of at the moment.

February in Review

After I graduated I changed to full time sales at work, which means I have to actually work while I'm at work a lot more often (feel free to pity me now). February so far has been very eventful both at work and at home.

Beginning of February, my friend got married, so the wedding party had 3 days nonstop of events leading up to the big day. First, we had the bachelorette party (for the protection of the individuals involved, I will not post any pictures). Then the bride and bridesmaids got a day of pampering including massages, manicures, and pedicures, followed by the wedding rehearsal and rehearsal dinner (where the bride, as she was introducing the wedding party, announced that we hated each other when we first met....which was true and we still joke about it). The day of the wedding we met up early in the morning and got our hair and make up done, then it was off to the Farmer's Market for pictures. It was an absolutely beautiful wedding and I was so excited to see my best friend of nearly 15 years get married to a great guy!

On February 9th my grandma passed away at 92 years old. She lived in Utah, and fortunately, my mom was able to make it to her before her passing. Jake and I took my 13 year old nephew to Brigham City for the services. Although it is always sad to lose a loved one, I know that I will see her again and she will always be my grandma. But it was exciting because all 17 cousins with 16 spouses, and 42 grandchildren were able to make it to the funeral which was the first time in 20 years that all the cousins had been together. While we were there we also go to spend time with my brother in Logan and my sister in law in Provo.

Out of 17 cousins, there are only 5 girls.

Jake and I drove back on Valentine's day, so we still haven't done anything to celebrate love day. Hopefully we'll get around to it eventually.

January in Review

As usual, I've fallen behind in updating my blog. So here's January in review...so far.

On January 3rd, I modeled in the OK Bride Bridal Fair at the Cox Convention Center. There were 2 fashion shows and I wore one bridesmaid's dress and one wedding dress. I went out in my bridesmaid's dress and everything was fine. Then as I was putting on the wedding dress for the first show the zipper of the wedding dress broke. So I got clipped into my dress by veil hangers then we put a long veil over it to try to cover where it was gapping. I'm not going to lie, I was really worried that I was going to step on the dress and it was going to fall off. Luckily, it didn't.

Later that week I helped host a bridal shower for one of my long time best friends, Caitlin. We had the shower at my house, so I was in charge of cleaning and that was about it, which was nice, but still time consuming. But the shower turned out wonderfully, so I was happy that it worked out so well for her.

On January 16th, Jake and I both modeled in the Clear Channel Bridal Show. I really enjoyed getting to see Jake in a few different tuxes again. And I was pretty proud when during the rehearsal I heard several of the girls gawking at him before they found out we were married. If we had had more time I probably would have made Jake pose for some wedding pictures that I wanted to get but missed at our wedding. Oh well, maybe next time...

After the show was another friend's wedding. She was on pom with me, so a few of the girls that are still around came to the wedding then we all went out afterwards. This time we even did a pretty good job at including our husbands.

Caitlin's parents had tickets for the Untitled at Artspace Gala in downtown Oklahoma City so Caitlin and I were able to attend that with them. Untitled at Artspace hosts different kinds of arts and artists from all over the world and this was there annual fundraiser. This year's theme was each artist had a room of the house that they were to create furniture for then all the exhibits are for sale as well as having a dinner with live music and dancers. This was a chair in the "media room". This was one of those chairs that I was scared to sit in, but I had to try it.

That has been January in review.

Christmas and New Years...for Brooke

*The following are exaggerations based on actual events.

OH My HeCk!! I can't believe that it's already the new year and I didn't blog about how totally awesome my Christmas was!!!!!

So to get ready for Christmas my in-laws (who are totally awesome) took Jake, me and his 2 little sisters ice skating at the outdoor ice skating rink in Oklahoma City!

Then, because Oklahoma is the greatest place to live ever, it snowed like a GAZILLION inches on Christmas Eve. Our Christmas tradition is to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with the in-laws, then spend all day Christmas with my family. But this year since the roads were SOOOOOO slick we ended up staying at the in-laws all night Christmas Eve. Since Jake is pretty much the bestest hubby ever, he and his dad went back out into the dangerous and life threatening Oklahoma blizzard to go back to our house to get an overnight bag for us. And since Jake is wonderful, he totally stopped and helped like 50 people that were stuck in ditches on his way to get our stuff and back!

Jake and I got some totally awesome stuff for Christmas! But since I'm feeling pretty lazy and don't want to find pictures for everything we got, I'll just got over the basics: boots, a sewing maching, new clothes, movies, and a new TV! Yay for us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then right after Christmas is Jake's birthday! That's right, my super loyal followers, my dearest, most wonderfullest hubby turned 26 this year. So for hubby's birthday we went out to dinner with our families then we went to one of our favorite activities.... KARAOKE!!!!!!! While we were there I totally ran into an ex-boyfriend...hello awkwardsville. But luckily, no fights broke out so it was totally ok.
The for New Year's Eve night preparation my totally awesome mother in law took me and my two sisters in law to get manicures (we were going to get pedicures but it was too cold to wear those little flip flops). So it was super nice to start the year out with pretty hands. See...

We ended 2009 (which I was happy to see go because it has totally been the ABSOLUTE WoRsT year of my life and that does include the year I died) by going to dinner at Texas Roadhouse (YuMmY!!!!!) with Jake's sister and her boyfriend then to Club Rodeo for some two stepping! Oh yes readers it's true. Yours truly did drag Jake out on the dance floor multiple times to two step because he had to show off his totally AWESOME and AMAZING cowboy boots I got him for Christmas.

The only downside to the evening was that I have been fighting off a cold-like thing all week and it hit me hard on NYE and with my 1 working lung full of junk, I lost my voice before we even got to the club. So I couldn't scream or yell and I didn't even have a noise maker to ring in the new year. T-O-T-A-L BuZzKiLL. And even today my voice still isn't back. I know what you're thinking...What the heck? So there's our holidays in review!

And of course now is the perfect time to tell you all my resolutions, but again, I'm feeling a little lazy so I'll just go with the usual. Lose 10 pounds, read my scriptures for 6 hours EVERYDAY and not get mad when people tell me they're pregnant. It's gonna be hard, but I can do it!

P.S. Brooke - part of my soul died while writing this. And I really do think my in laws are great.