Dog is my copilot

I miss driving SOOOOOOOO badly, I can't even tell you.  In fact, all of you go out and kiss your cars right now.  It's so funny how we take everything for granted until it's taken away, and man, balance, driving, working, equilibrium are all among those things I took for granted as things I'd always be able to do.  Funny how things we can complain about become things we desperately crave when they're taken away from us.  I'm still only able to drive to the gym or grocery store and back, and that's within a 2 mile radius, and luckily there's construction so it's 25 miles an hour (and I totally drive like a Grandma now anyway with 2 hands on the wheel staring straight ahead all slow - people get ALL sorts of pissy behind me because I actually *gasp* go the speed limit, it's hilarious).  I miss zipping around in my cute little Fonz, but at least I get little tastes of it, driving back and forth to the gym every day, and I know some day I'll be better and back to driving real distances...and probably bitching about being bored in a long commute and you'll have to remind me about this time in my life when I couldn't drive but 5 minutes total..haha!  Human nature - aren't we lame?

Anyhoo, I think Galileo has missed going on little trips in the Fonz because when he walks through the garage, he's always sniffing at my car, so the other day when I had to go pick up a prescription, I took him with me, and he was so freakin' happy!  I promise, I wasn't unsafe taking these, I still was staring straight ahead, just one hand on the wheel this time - I took a million, and only these 4 turned out - I have a ton of the sky, floor, stick shift, etc, ha!  Anyhoo, here's my little driving buddy, so precious.  And, as a side note, it was so fun to come out of Ralphs and see him sitting there waiting for me after my errand - my loyal little partner through thick and thin.  Man, I love this guy.

 This one's my favorite!!

First Padres Game!

We went to our first Padres game of the season 2 weekends ago with our friends Eric and Sara and their adorable little girl Cecilia.  It was such a nice, chill night and since we were with a baby, we got the park "seats" where you can sit on the grass, or walk around.  Funny, though - we started off in the park, then eventually somehow wandered into the fancy-pants VIP Omni Hotel area without anybody noticing, so that was an awesome, warm place to watch the rest of the game (plus they had a dessert buffet for $10 - I mean, woot woot!)

Before the game we met up for drinks/apps at the Blind Burro and funny enough, we ran into an old coworker of Rob's, Joe and his wife Mim who's now preggers!  So fun to catch up:

 Us at the park with little Cecilia, I mean seriously - that face!!!  I love that girl!!!

 We all think this photo is HILARIOUS because Cecilia is grabbing for Mommy's beer - hahahaha!

Bathtub Monitor

So freakin' funny - I take a lot of baths and Galileo always camps out and snores away the whole time in the bathroom as I'm soaking happily.  But, something seems to happy around that magical hour time - it's truly like an inner timer goes off and he gets all alarmed and worried somehow I've gotten sucked down the drain, turned into a giant prune, or maybe even magically disappeared because, you know, since it hasn't happened the other 1,248 times I've taken a bath means it certainly couldn't happen THIS time (dog logic. You can't argue with it).  But around that hour mark he starts getting all sorts of worried and like a grumpy old man might keep giving you the stink eye if you're talking too loudly while he's trying to eat his soup, Galileo actually gets up on his back legs and checks in on me....numerous time.  As if to say "I've got my eye on YOU lady".

I know I probably shouldn't have, but I brought my phone into the tub this time to catch said stink eye.  Et, voila.

So freaking funny, slays me every time!!!

My brother visits!!!!

A couple weeks ago my brother was in Irvine for a day and was so sweet to drive down to see us - he was only here for 2 nights and a day but it was HEAVEN to see him and catch up.  We crammed a lot into our day and made it the "day of Chris heaven" - taking him to see Legoland's new Hotel (and doing some shopping).

 Notice how the guys even get the Lego dude's "c" hand hold right, I'm so impressed.

 Like a kid in a candy store...

 Sooo funny, this is what's in their elevators:

We went to eat a Poseidon afterwards - this girl was starving and about to go all Legoland-meltdown on somebody.

 And then, since Chris collects Hard Rock stuff, we went to the Hard Rock Hotel for drinks on their rooftop bar downtown.  It was a bit of a douchey scene but it didn't matter - we were having fun together hanging out.

Love my Squisher!!!  Thanks so much for coming to visit us, Chris - Love you xoxoxoxox

Health Update - one step forward, a whole friggin' year backwards.

I'm not doing so hot.  In fact, I think I need this blog post almost like a Dear Diary, so I'm sorry, it's not going to be a happy one.  Rob's on a business trip which just compounds it, but I'm feeling just so horrible.  Over the past 2 1/2 weeks, I've taken a huge step backwards symptom-wise and I feel like I did when the vertigo first hit.  I'm right back to where I was, holding onto the freakin' couch cushions, feeling like I'm about to fall off at any given moment.  I'm spinning almost constantly, even when I'm not moving an inch, I'm rolling all over the place.  The computer and phone screens are absolutely horrible stimulants so I'm sorry I'm going to be out of touch for a while (again typing this super fast while not looking), and reading is again a major challenge.  The craziest part is at my doctor's appointment on Friday, they put me on the chair and I had absolutely no eye movements (nystagmus) so my crystals are where they need to be - so they're wondering if this is maybe another viral insult happening again.  So, I'm back on heavy anti-virals and antibiotics just in case that'll help knock out whatever is happening.  I can guarantee you, that was the one and only time I was actually hoping for a chair treatment and what do you know, I actually didn't get one.

Its just so disheartening at this point - the deadline to return to work or lose my job is June 15th and I had hoped with physical therapy that I could get there, even with some accommodation and even part-time.  Physical therapy exercises of shaking my head back and forth while looking at an eye chart, bouncing a ball up and down while marching backwards and forwards, etc, were starting to get a bit easier when this hit, but needless to say I'm back to square one and my balance is back to zero, I'm falling over again, etc.  I can't help but feel so hopeless and frustrated and wonder when this will get better, but in the meantime I don't know what my options are.  My doctor supports me in applying for permanent social security disability and hearing that was sobering - I keep hoping this will go away soon and I haven't heard his reassurance that this will subside in a long time.  I'm trying my best to remember this horrible feeling got better before so hopefully it will again, but damnit, this is really hard to take such a huge step backwards when I was hoping we had put so much behind us.

I could definitely use prayers and good thoughts - and Rob could as well.  I'm sure this is really hard for him to watch me suffering like this and to be so powerless against it.  Thank you to everybody who reads this and for everyone's support - it means more than you will ever know.  Much love.

I know I usually end with something funny, but frankly - not so much in the mood.  Instead, I'm ending with a miracle and something that made me boo-hoo.  (been a lot of that lately, not going to lie).  I could stand to have a miracle too, and this was amazing.  Did you guys see this incredible story of the woman who lost her house and everything during the tornado including her precious little doggy?  I promise you, there's a happy ending, you know me and animal sadness...I wouldn't post it otherwise.

ROW - the Chicken Piccata edition

Dude, I love chicken piccata and always order it at Italian restaurants but I've never known how to make it. I was craving it the other day and looked online for a recipe and now I know why it's so delicious… Loads and loads of butter :-) Let's be honest, anything's good with loads of butter. I actually cut down a bit on the butter and the oil and it was still delicious and next time I make this I'm going to cut down even more for Pete's sake... You could see the oil pooling on the plate… Ew. 

But anyhoo, Delicious recipe and my Italian food critic next to me on the couch even went back for seconds so success! Please to enjoy. 

Mud Buggin'!!!

Last weekend we drove to Scottsdale to visit Rob's cousins, Tim and Howie for their annual crawfish party and holy cow we had a blast! Tim's Mom and Stepdad, Rob's Aunt and Uncle Phyllis and Ray, were also there - down from South Dakota, so it was an added bonus to see them too - so fun!!

 Here Tim shows off his bucket o' sangria.

 Getting a little love from my furry cousins - those guys are the BEST...they're sooo cute!!!  There's a third one too but he's camera shy.

 They had somewhere between like 80-100 people if you can believe it, and had rented tents and tables to keep out of the crazy Arizona heat - they put down newspaper and we all dug into those crawfish like they were going out of style.  Slurp!!

Here's Tim and I with their friend Cathy - she was hilarious.  My new girlfriend.

 The cousins!!!

 Smoochin'!

 Fam!

 At the end of the night, there was mass consumption of Howie's AMAZING chocolate bread pudding.  That stuff was insane.  I'd say slap yo mama insane, but since Tim's mom was there, with respect, we'll just say, insane.  Rob and Tim may have had a few nibbles....

 

 The day we left, we met up for brunch with our friends Steve and Erika who had moved to Arizona last year from San Diego...and it was so great to catch up!  It was like a bonus to the weekend.  Plus, we stuffed ourselves silly before the 6+ hour drive home - blech.  In hindsight, probably not good for the girl who gets dizzy on a 5 minute drive as a passenger to do the 6 hour drive, but I'm determined to keep pushing and get better...so damnit, in the spirit of refusing to let life pass me by, this trip happened and we had a great time!

On the way out of town, we saw this...who wants to steal me a sign?  Come on, you know you wanna...

My Old Skool Bday Partay!!!

I have the best hubby EVER.  There, I said it.

Needless to say with everything we've been going through, there hasn't been a lot of celebrating happening all up in Chez Warrenski but he made that happen for my birthday.  And THEN some.  For my birthday this year, we threw a huge ol' bash, and went old skool on it.  It made me so happy and frankly, made the whole year worth it.  It was a costume party with theme of "go as your favorite decade" and everybody brought their A game.  It was AWESOME!!!  Rob and I did 80's and I loved our outfits, if I do say so myself.  I did the neon thing, it was like day-glo threw up all over me:

Rob did the whole polo shirt layered look with the collar popped and jeans pegged - excellent - rad!

We even had the whole food/drink situation as "old skool" which basically reads as "crap from childhood".  I wasn't even drinking and I felt so hungover the next day from all the sugar and preservatives/chemicals that I ingested.  It was awesome.

 The other thing we did was have people submit their old pics for our "Wall of Fame/Shame" and had people vote on their favorite pics - we then gave a Rubics cube and a 6 pack of Mickeys (not much more old Skool than that!) to the winner - our buddy Jay. 

 We also had a costume contest, and our lovely winner can be seen below - Laura totally deserved it.  She had acid washed high-waisted jean shorts, a hyper-colored shirt, FAKE braces, a backpack with a walkman, key chains with pics of Johnny Dep and other 80's hearththrobs, you name it.  She brought it.  I was so proud.  She won a lava lamp and a 6 pack of Bartles and James and the funniest quote of the night was when she opened it she screamed "someone's losing their virginity tonight!"  LOL!!

 

 

 I think my absolute favorite part of the party, though, was that we had rented a photo booth and OMG was it worth it.  We had so much fun cramming in that thing all night long and the photos are HILARIOUS!!!  We definitely got our money's worth!  The funniest thing is you'd think with our love of the 'booth, that Rob and I would have been in there all night with each other, but with 50+ guests and circulating around the party, we only got in their once together!!!  Otherwise, we got in a bunch with other people, but never again just the two of us, hahaha!  So much fun though, I totally want to do it again.  Best party EVER!!!  Best birthday ever!!!

Here's a link to the photo booth pics in all their glory, enjoy: