Illness!! Take your vitamins! and get some sleep!

I wrote the last post so optimistically, didn't I?... three days later, just in time for all that fun time off with A~, I got sick. He talked me into going to the state fair. Since I had promised him for months we were going, I hopped myself up on cold meds, packed 3 pocket packs of Kleenex and off we went. For 9 hours!

It was just a blast. I was so distracted by all the stuff and how fun A~ was that I ended up having more fun at the fair than I've had in years! We danced, we rode rides, we ate, we looked at art, animals, fireworks, and people, and won stuffed animals at the midway.

Best fair ever.

I took 10 million pictures while we were in the butterfly house. If you've never gone you should go. Best $3 spent at the fair.

Since then I've been sick every couple weeks, needing to take time off work. I've used up nearly all of my PTO because of it. We did go to a great family celebration at the Transportation museum in St. Paul. What a cool place! Never even heard of it. It's a little creepy, I like creepy. They have old trains and buses.

The Chef in the fancy first class train car. (scared the crap out of me at first)

My great uncle owns a bus company, he and his wife were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, which is also the 50th anniversary of the company he started. They are very sweet people, who run a great company. They are also the ones who do the big family reunions I've gone to.

In honor of the big 5-0 they had the celebration and then took everyone who wanted to go, to a Twins game where my very talented cousin sang the national anthem. I was sick, so couldn't go to that. I heard she was amazing.

Totally unintentional reflection, when I saw this for the first time on the computer I laughed my head off!

Personally I kind of think this illness stuff is all the stress catching up to me physically. I did take an exercise boot camp for 3 weeks during all of it, and this either made things better or worse, not sure. My butt looks better. ;) The last week of it I was just exhausted. This past week, I went home early from work 2 days in a row, each day I went to take a short nap and 'boom' out like a light zonked for 4-6 hours straight. At 11 am!

Our last beautiful fall day outing, skipping stones at lake Harriet.

and taking pictures in the garden...

I went to the Dr. today thinking both A~ and I had h1n1, he probably did, but they aren't testing either of us for it (which I totally don't understand!). I may have had it, they took blood to run other tests and I clearly have been fighting off a virus "for some time". So, could have been mono, h1n1, or even strep.

Stress.

I'll find out in a week, guess some of the tests are only done at the Mayo and once a week. Not sure why that's beneficial, I suppose it's because mono and strep can take months to go away if untreated?

So take your vitamins, wash your hands, bring hand sanitizer, and get your flu shot!

Now pictures of snow! I still want Autumn back, I'm just saying this years fall was a total gip.

A snow capped fall

The snow on the fallen leaves reminded me of popcorn puffs

Snow covered cherries(?)

I'm so lucky there was no avalanche!

creepy and beautiful

A~ and I went exploring a cemetery today. I suppose it's a little creepy, but it is beautiful. We had a lot of fun sneaking around the Chapel, looking in doors and checking the place out. It's open to the public, but it felt like we shouldn't be there since we were completely alone. The Chapel is just sooooo amazing, words don't do it justice(nor do pictures). I'd get married there in a second. The only thing that'd keep me from doing that would be the whole "you got married in a cemetery, you must love vampires(or goth or something dumb)" thing. No. I just have a strange obsession with architecture and things Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and MCM.

Thankfully I was clueless and took a bunch of pictures, I found out later it's not allowed. Oh well, ignorance is bliss right?

The one thing in the whole place that fascinated and really creeped me out but, I adore her.

(check out the red glow in the lower left, it's in both pics I have of her face. Oooooohhhh...!)

Inside the "crying" room.

Copper doors!

"Memory"

"faith"

(for some reason this is hidden behind a wall, it's freakin' gorgeous)

***

After the cemetery we went for a ride on the trolley. I wish they hadn't ever gotten rid of those, I love them. The sounds are great. It makes me want to go up to the train museum they have in Duluth and ride one of the old trains. I need a second job just to afford all the fun crap I want to show A~. Not really related but, it popped into my head just now, on our way home I saw a Trans-Am with collector plates. Yep, I'm officially O.L.D. I'm not sure what I think of that. (sigh)

Isn't this so much cuter than a city bus??

A fun day.

a Lost tooth, a tooth fairy and symbols?

Hey. I'm dying my hair and blogging at the same time! Multi-tasker that I am.



A~ lost his 3rd tooth the other day. I got to be the Footh Tairy as we call her around here. He looks freaking adorable with his huge-mungous gap in his mug. Adorable. Can't get enough of the smile these days.

He told me on the way to school this morning that he had a really real dream last night about me. He's NEVER told me about dreams about me before. Most are dreams about places and well, robots or spies. This one was that I was going to have a baby and he was jumping up and down saying "I'm going to have a baby sister!" So, cute. Dream interpretations mean that it's a new beginning, not a baby. Which is reasonable since I'm unattached and it'd be some serious sort of immaculate conception type stuff. He also said to me tonight just before bed, "I just love you so, so incredibly much and my life is still getting better." Okay, heart melt...NOW!
How do you not become a giant puddle to THAT?!

Symbols. Or something.
I have been seeing Herons everyday, everywhere I go. Not in the distance but, either flying right over my car or even more scarier, over my head. There's the occasional egret as well, but by and large they are grey, or I guess technically blue herons. This has been going on for well over a month now. My reasoning mind goes and looks for a reason I'd be seeing them, so I looked them up and it seems they fly around mostly to feed their young. I must just happen to constantly be near breeding couples while they are in search of food. My childlike part of my mind says I remember there being some good significance to seeing these birds all over.
Here's what I found there Granted it's about getting a tattoo, but hey it's the same question, and I think it rocks. I think I'll have to incorporate a heron into my freedom tattoo.

Next symbol. Turtles. I've been besieged by turtles the last few days. So I searched turtles as symbols, lo and behold it's about tattoos. I think after reading this I may need to add a turtle to my freedom tattoo, too.

It is odd how, these two things apply so very very much to my life right now. Comforting too. I love being an oddball who loves this stuff. Life's so hard sometimes, sometimes you just need to believe in magic.

:)

and..BING! I'm done. Time to wash the hair dye out and go to beddy bye.