i just can't seem to stay away

sorry to you facebookers who have already read this, just skip to the pictures at the bottom.

I was helping Justin on Monday night. He was revelcro-ing his pedal board and wanted my help getting all the sticky velcro residue off the bottom on the pedals. Well, I took the hardest one, with all the gunk on the bottom. I was trying to get it off with some krud kutter (not as good as goo-gone) and a razor blade. see where this is going? note to self: cut AWAY from your body. anyway, the blade slipped and the razor went into my left index finger, by the top knuckle, on the side by my thumb.

i yelled, grabbed my finger and ran into the bathroom. i couldn't bring myself to look at it so i yelled for justin to come help me. he told me i had to let go and wash it out at least. so i took my hand away and ran it under the faucet. well the water running down the drain was much more blood than water, this sucker was gushing! it was obviously not going to stop bleeding, so i clamped my hand back over the finger. we put a couple pieces of gauze over it and they were soaked pretty quickly. we changed the gauze and taped it up really really tight. justin said that if it hadn't stopped bleeding when we were getting ready for bed, we had to go to the ER. i DID NOT want to go.

so, i watched a movie and he worked on his pedal board for a couple hours. then we took the tape off. hadn't so much stopped bleeding, darn it! it wasn't gushing like before, but it was definitely still bleeding. so we went the the ER and waited and waited and waited.

it took forever to get back to a room! but once we did they were pretty quick. they numbed up my finger, which really hurt! the doctor put the numbing needle all the way through my finger and into my palm! that was nasty! then she stitched me up very nicely. 5 in all. we got home around 1:30. yuck! so i skipped work yesterday!

get ready for some awesomely gross pictures! sorry they're kind of washed out.

new camera

we bought a new digital camera! justin used most of his birthday money on it. we've needed a new one for quite some time. the flash on the old one has been broken since i dropped it a loooong time ago. yay for no more blurry pictures! it's a digital canon powershot sd100is, for you tech nerds who wanted to know. the is stands for image stabilization, which helps the picture to not be blurry when you don't use the flash. super cool!

happy birthday justin!

justin turned 28 on the 20th. i threw a party for him at our house and it was quite a success if i do say so myself! originally we were going to have the party on the 20th at 8:00. as i turns out we found out a few days before that one of justin's favorite guitar players, bill frisell, was having a concert at the exact same time. so we were able to change the party from tuesday to monday. we had about 20 people over and partied til the wee hours. really! the last people left at about 1:15 am! we had so much fun and i think justin felt pretty loved up on.

check the awesome guitar cake i made. thanks, jean for the mold!

singing happy birthday.

wire cutters and nose rings

so i decided last night to switch out my nose ring. the one i had in had been in for over a year and the "diamond" had fallen out at least nine months ago. i would have switched it sooner, but putting it in was fairly traumatic, so i didn't really want to go through that again. when i put it in originally justin had to do it for me because it hurt too bad to do it myself. it's basically a stud with a little ball on the end to keep it from coming back out. the only problem is that the ball is bigger than the hole it needs to fit through. last time justin had to shove it through for me. this time i wanted him to pull it out for me. here's how the conversation went:

A: Ok, you're just going to have to pull it out.

J: Why can't you do it?

A: I can't. It hurts too much and I can't hurt myself on purpose.

J: Ok, well how am I supposed to do this.

A: Just pull it. 1,2,3 go, pull hard, fast, just go.

J: I can't, I don't want to hurt you.

A: Just do it, pull fast, come on, go.

J: Is it straight?

A: YES! Just do it! Pull!

J: This isn't working. It sticks out far enough, maybe we could cut it off with wire cutters?

A: GREAT IDEA!

So we got the wire cutters and I decided I wanted to do it myself. Well I couldn't see well enough, so Justin had to do it...

J: Ok, push the stud out from the inside so it sticks out really far.

A: This is freaking me out.

J: It'll be fine. I just want to make sure I'm only cutting the metal and nothing else.

A: Yeah, that would be good.

J: Ok, you ready?

A (with eyes closed): Yes, go!

SNAP! Off it came in two little pieces. Piece of cake. My new one has no ball on the end and is much smaller than the old one. Hallelujah! I think it looks pretty good if I do say so myself. :)

half marathon

well i did it! i ran my first half marathon. well... ran/walked.

the country music half marathon has bands play all along the race course and justin was in one of the bands. he had to be there at 6 am which meant he dropped my off at the starting line at 5:45 am. EARLY! plus it was raining. right after we took this picture, it really started pouring! we were drenched. this is my friend, rana, who ran with me. we were in corral 24 out of 32. there were about 1,000 people per corral, so it was a pretty big race-30,000+ people. the first gun went off at 7:00, but they do a wave start, so we didn't actually get to start until almost 8! rana and i ran together until about mile 9. it was fun to see her husband and mom cheering us on at miles 4 and 7. at mile 9, rana needed to stop to tie her shoe and wanted to walk a while, i wanted to keep running, so we split up. at mile 11.5 i got to see justin playing and it was fun to see him waving at me from up on stage. after that, it was killer. that last 1.5 miles are the most hilly and that last mile i wanted to die. my knees had been hurting from the first mile and by now, my left knee was about to give out. but i made it and finished in 2:46. not quite as fast as i had hoped but still good.

my times for each section of the race were:

first 3 miles: 39 minutes
second 3 miles: 39 minutes
next 4 miles: 53 minutes
last 3 miles: 35 minutes

it was great to see erich and rana's mom and our friends, chris and colleen cheering me on at the finish line. by the time i got through the maze at the finish line, grabbed my stuff and met back up with erich and rana, my legs were about to give out. they took me over to justin's band stand and i watched them cheer on the last of the full marathoners. home to pizza and a nap-a good day!

hit the road jack

Justin got the gig!!!

Most of you may not know, but Justin got on Terri Clark's summer tour! We are so excited and I'm so proud of him. It happened pretty quickly. Her band leader, Kevin originally called Justin for references for an acoustic/back ground singer. He recommend our friend Mark, who auditioned and got the gig. A few days after Mark called us to say he got the gig, Kevin called Justin back to tell him their lead guitarist just quit and did he know anyone who might want it. "Ummm....ME!" was the response he got. So, Kevin held us in suspense for a couple days while he decided. This morning, he came by the house to check out Justin's gear and to see how awesome he is! :) Justin called me about noon to tell me it's for sure! This is so great! The money will be great, and Justin gets to experience a real tour! And all you Manhattan-ites. He'll be playing at Country Stampede this year!

WOOHOO!

my favorite boys

locks of love

while i was home last weekend, i cut off 12 inches of my hair for locks of love. it felt great and i love my new do. thanks abbe! i had been growing it out for a while specifically to cut it for locks of love. it's going to be nice to have short hair for the summer. i don't know that i could have handled that mane much longer!

spring break

although i don't get a spring break, my mom does. my dad took off that week also and they kicked it off by coming to visit us! we had an awesome time. they got here on saturday night and stayed through tuesday noon.

on after they got here on saturday night, we just stayed around the house and talked and got them settled in on the air mattress-oh yeah! sunday we got up and went to church for palm sunday. we tried out a new one-new song. we came home and at lunch and then mom and dad and i headed to the vandy baseball game. justin didn't come because he needed to work on songs. vandy beat south carolina 10-2 i think was the final score. it was a great game an when the sun was out a beautiful day. thanks to ciara who got us the tickets. after the game we took riley to the dog park for a little while. there were a lot of dogs there and a crazy old lady who kept giving riley treats and then saying, "i don't know why she likes me so much?!" when riley wouldn't leave her alone. well stop giving her treats, crazy old lady! sunday night we went out to eat at o'charley's and then to see our friend mark play at the nashville palace. he played for the billy block show which gets recorded live for one of the radio stations in town. each person plays a fairly short set, so it's a fun show to watch if you don't want to stay out late.

monday we got up pretty leisurely and headed out around 11 for burgess falls state park. it's about an hour and a half east and a little south of us. they boast the most waterfalls in the shortest distance in all of tennessee (and maybe the US?). it was a beautiful hike!! it had rained on saturday, so the falls were full and we had so much fun. there weren't very many people on the trail and we made sure to document our trek. we took riley and i did pretty good with my foot although it started hurting towards the end. there are 3 main falls-small, middle and BIG. we kept ooohhing and aaaahing as we went, not realizing how much more spectacular they would get. we got to the big one which is 130 feet tall. and you can walk down to the bottom of it. we went almost the whole way down, but the mist was getting us all wet and it was cold so we headed back up. there was another little loop trail that we decided to go on before we headed back. we saw signs for the trail, but couldn't figure out where exactly it was supposed to start. mom decided to make her own trail and after wandering around in the woods for a bit, we found the actual trail. it was fun! :) we got back to the awesome rental van (hear the sarcasm) and ate some snacks before heading home. (the reason we have a rental van will have to wait for another post.) we got home around 4 or 5. mom and i headed to the store to get supplies for out baked potatoes and parmesan pesto. the boys headed to fat mo's for burgers. that night we watched dan in real life. such a cute movie and funny. everyone loved it. a great movie!

tuesday morning we got up a little late, made awesome orange, pineapple, strawberry juice and enjoyed breakfast. they dropped me off at work around ten and then headed to the airport soon after. i'm so glad they came and we've decided every time they come we need to visit another tennessee state park.

let it snow!

Well this is pretty late in coming, but I thought I'd share anyway. It actually snowed in Nashville a significant amount a little while ago. 4 whole inches! :) I know you Kansasans are thinking that's nothing, but if it even looks like it MAY snow they cancel school and everything else here. So for it to actually come down and stick for a while is a big deal. Justin missed it because he was in Virginia (I think) and I was still hobbling around so I didn't get to play in it but Riley had fun playing in it and sticking her nose down in the fluff. It didn't stay around for long, but it was fun while it lasted. These are some pictures out our kitchen windows and in the back yard.