Nathaniel in the rain at Busch Gardens

The picture I promised, courtesy of Isabel's phone:

Isn't that baby just adorable???

I woke up at 2:30 this morning, sat around in bed for a few hours, and then gave up and came downstairs to write. I recently submitted one of my novels for publication and am still waiting to hear back (it's been almost a month), and in the meantime, I'm working on the sequel to that one. They're fun books. I'm almost halfway done with the first draft of this sequel.

I turned 24 yesterday. It was definitely my least emotional birthday ever. As a child I loved my birthdays because they meant I was growing up, and all I ever wanted to be was a grown-up. And then when I became a grown-up I hated my birthdays because every birthday was a reminder of how lame my life was and how many goals I hadn't yet achieved.

Yesterday was the first birthday I did not actively love or hate. Really, it was just chill. I did like 5 loads of laundry; worked out; scrubbed the shower; chopped down this tree-like weed thing and pulled out the ivy that had overgrown one of my windows; watched James; made dinner; and bought a new dish scrubby thing from Bed Bath and Beyond. Oh, and we did Circle Time with Nathaniel and Elli for the first time (we learned about squares, purple, high and low, Jesus, and read three books). It was a busy day but a good one.

Oh, and we also had FHE, during which we watched this video about the new year (you should watch it):




Look not behind thee. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. I think that was a very fitting video for yesterday. It was the first day of the rest of my life and it was a good day.

Busch Gardens, friends moving back, and other things

Today our friends the Marshalls are moving back in with us! Hooray! We are super excited. They are among our dearest friends, and pretty much the only couple we're close to in real life anymore. They are exactly our ages and have a baby 4 weeks apart from Nathaniel. I'm so excited to see them again (it's been about eight months).

To prepare, we spent the last night moving furniture and cleaning things. It was fun.

Nathaniel's been having an interesting time getting used to the time difference; he went from EST here to Pacific Time in Oregon for two weeks, then came back here but after only four days went on another vacation (and schedules are always weird on vacation). But last night he went down at like 6:50 pm and he's still sleeping now at 7:30 am. Winning!

I wish I had pictures from Busch Gardens to show you all, but I don't. My camera's batteries died. Actually, here are two pictures from before it died:

Those were obviously taken in Dragon Land. Sadly, that slide was the one thing Nathaniel enjoyed most about Busch Gardens, I'm pretty sure. That, and a crazy rainstorm we weathered, during which he continually tried to throw himself out from under our umbrella and into the rain. I'll post a picture of that later. It was cute.

He was a very good boy--the first thing we did when we got there was we took him on the Battering Ram. We sat in the very middle, across from my dad and Sam. Baby sat between me and Isabel, and we each held onto his legs and I had my arm around him.

He was terrified.

He shook like a little baby leaf. He was so scared. But he didn't cry. He is super brave!

Except for that what did make him cry was a baby Ferris wheel that went like 6 feet off the ground and I was sitting next to him the whole time, and it went super slowly. He was traumatized.

He did also semi-enjoy this little weird dragon ride where the dragons go in a circle up and down, and I think he semi-enjoyed riding in the teacups with us. He almost enjoyed the merry-go-round, but the whole time he just wanted to touch all the horses, and we had to keep him seated in our little bench.

For lunch we had funnel cake and this awesome potato chip like thing. My mom said that she really wanted to buy the machine that made them--"even if it was $600 it would be worth it!" she said. Only they're actually $800. So, maybe not so worth it. Who knows.

Other than that--reviews of the new rides: Verbolten, I thought, was a sad replacement of the Big Bad Wolf. I didn't realize that the ride was now basically indoors--you do the roller coaster through a weird haunted forest thing in a building... it's like Space Mountain or something. The ride DOES have a very surprising moment, but I thought the Big Bad Wolf was better. When you have such a beautiful area, why have an indoor coaster? Riding the Big Bad Wolf wasn't just super fun, it was a beautiful experience, because you got to be surrounded by the forest and ride over the lake and everything. Oh well.

Mach Tower--eh. Okay, I hate those rides anyway, where you go up super high and then drop. I always ride them anyway, but I secretly hate them. Mach Tower was better than normal rides like that, because you spin around as you go up, so you get to see the whole park. However, for me personally, the harness was so weird-fitting that my left arm got totally smushed and it hurt the entire time. I would not ride that ride again. ...until next time I go. And only because of peer pressure.

Alpengeist isn't new, but what was new was its joltiness. I think they need to tighten the screws on that thing because it threw my head around like crazy and all of us had headaches afterwards. It used to be our hands-down favorite ride because it was so smooth.

Best coasters: Apollo's Chariot, followed by the Gryphon (Gryffon? Griffon? whatever).

Best other rides: Wurbelwind, DaVinci's Flying Machines.

I was surprised at how many rides Nathaniel could actually go on, at only 30 inches tall. It wasn't a lot of rides, but considering his size, I was impressed.

Anyway. Vacation was super fun. And now, glad to be back and getting back into routines. And excited to see the Marshalls today! <3

Pictures from Williamsburg

My family went to Williamsburg this week. Here are pictures!

Baby's bedhead in the car:

With Grandpa Steve:

Looking at a caterpillar (right before he took it and ALMOST smushed it but don't worry, I saved it):

Trying on hats:

By a cool building:

Colonial lady with laptop:

Family:

Me and my awesome new hat:

A gentleman after the old school:

Pictures: Oregon Vacay con't

Eating apples:

At my philosophy espresso:

At the Rose Garden again:

With Grandpa Bob:

Pictures: Portland Rose Garden

essential oil update

So, it's been... five days since I got my ear infection, and two days since I started treating it with tea tree and lavender oils.

The swelling is almost 100% gone, and there's basically no pain. I'm actually shocked that it worked so well. Even last night my ear was really itchy. But today it seems almost completely better.

treating a weird ear infection with essential oils

Over the past two years, I've had something like 8 ear infections. I don't know what the normal rate of ear infections is for adults in this world, but it seems like a lot to me. Before I turned 21, the only other ear infections I had was from when I was a little kid.

Anyway, I got ANOTHER ear infection on Wednesday. It's been three days. I've been trying to decide what to do, because I'm going out on another vacation with my own family (as opposed to Carl's family) on Monday, and I don't want to spend the whole time, you know, deaf and unable to think from having a throbbing ear.

While I was out in Oregon, my interest was rekindled in essential oils. I've been using them for a while, mostly for cleaning products--409 and Windex give me headaches, so I started making my own eco-friendly and non-toxic alternatives using some antimicrobial, antifungal, and antibacterial essential oils (they also smell awesome: win!).

I did a bunch of research and read that melaleuca, or tea tree oil, can be used to help with ear infections: you mix 10 drops of it with 1 tbsp of carrier oil, and drop a few drops in your ear a few times a day. Alternatively, you can put a few drops on a cotton ball and stick that in your ear (you would never pour essential oil directly into your ear because it is too potent for that).

So anyway, I did that yesterday. It just so happens that of the 5 essential oils I have, tea tree oil is the one I have the most of, since I use it for practically everything. I mixed some of it with coconut oil and have been dropping it into my ear, and right now I have a cotton ball with it in my ear.

I had high hopes for the treatment, because I didn't want to go through ANOTHER set of antibiotics to treat this. But yesterday, I was feeling dejected: I still had a lot of pain and swelling, and I was starting to doubt the idea.

BUT the good news is that this morning, I woke up realizing that my ear was less than half as swollen as it was yesterday. Pain is significantly diminished and the interior of my ear seems to be healing up.

Maybe this was not such a terrible idea after all!