Apologies to my children

I was once a political junkie. The first presidential election I followed was Gore v. Bush. I was 17. I watch the debates, I read all I could... and the race after that... and after that... but now....

I can't take it. I. Can't. Take. It. It's so depressing. My computer even has the John Oliver add-on making all things "Trump" into "Drumpf" (except Twitter for some reason) which just magnifies my frustration when Drumpf wins a state. I polled my family to find out if anyone was drawn to the election as I was. Survey said:
Doing laundry.
Watching West Wing (Vote Bartlett!)
Youth activity
Watching NCIS
I made cookies and ate ice cream. Painted a little, cross stitched to X-Files.

It was agonizing. How is it someone who says such outrageous things, which would swiftly kill any other campaign, still gets votes? How is he leading? I don't even know anyone who is voting Drumpf. America seems to be learning how Hitler was elected. We often say things like 'How did Germany vote for this guy?' 'Didn't they look into his background?' "How were they so blind?" This is how, dear America. Angry voters don't look into things. Anger is no way to approach an election. It feeds on the rantings of anything fueling the fire of blame. Times are tough and we like to hear it's not our fault. I believe angry voters is exactly why Trump is leading in delegates.

President Hinckley said "Anger is not an expression of strength. It is an indication of one's inability to control his thoughts, words, his emotions. Of course it is easy to get angry. When the weakness of anger takes over, the strength of reason leaves. Cultivate within yourselves the mighty power of self-discipline."

On the plus side (I hope it's a plus), there is talk of a brokered convention (I think it'd kill the GOP, but at this point I don't care) which would be fascinating.

New Hearing Aids

Yet again, realizing I haven't written in my journal because writing is so slow and typing is so fast, I turn to my blog to record some happenings in my little corner of the world. There is much to catch up on!

First, the new hearing aids! The GoFundMe page raised enough that we bought one in cash September 23rd, 2015 and are working to pay of the other one. It will be paid off before the end of the year. I'm looking forward to that. It's like another car payment. Eugh!

Here are the updates I put on facebook, as I hoped to promote the fundraiser and pay for the hearing aids.

Matt came up with a brilliant solution to keep my hearing aids from turning off and on all the time. Thank you sweetie! And thank you Nerf bullet for your sacrifice.

I got used to the new hearing aids over Comic Con, where I had a booth for Paint My Game. Didn't make back the cost of the booth, but it was fun nonetheless. Like a geek and nerd parade and I got to watch. :)

9-22-2015
This is the first time Matt came to the audiology office with me. We ordered the hearing aids and made the ear molds. Next video will be getting them! 
I was going to be fun and order the blue ones... but apparently that wasn't available, so .... so much for daring. smile emoticon The second hearing aid we'll work to pay for in stages. It's like another car payment, which hurts, but we couldn't just order one. That'd be like having a current prescription for one eye and an old on on the other eye. Eugh!

9-23-15
I am now wearing new hearing aids! oh my! all the new sounds!

9-25-15 
Sitting in my booth at Comic-Con I hear a clicking like someone drumming with a pen... clear as it would be if I was doing that in my quiet office. ... what is that? someone in the booth BEHIND me tapping a pen on the table! These new hearing aids are awesome!

The hearing aids came with a Bluetooth for free. :) I wear a bizarre necklace which act like headphones... you know how Bluetooth works, so. Yeah. Moving on.

Gamers in Love Episode 1

Matt's not really a blogger, but he'll chime in this way. Enjoy our ramblings!
We have this on the bottom of yesterday's post, but we're going to vlog a little more regularly eventually.

Go Fund Me videos

Hello! Beka here!

We've got a Go Fund Me page up for new hearing aids. Mine are 10 years old and really need to be replaced. Lately they've been going on/off on their own and background noise is louder than it once was. Over $2,000 so far! At this rate, maybe we'll have enough by Christmas, but I'm really hoping to meet the $7,500 goal in August so I can have new hearing aids by Comic Con. I have a booth and really need to be able to hear in such a loud space. 

All donations have been from family and friends so far... and 2 anonymous donations. So, we've done a few things hoping to go viral. 1 is what I call "Deaf Lyrics". It's a little beyond mis-heard lyrics because sometimes what I hear is so off someone with normal hearing doesn't know how I heard potato when the words spoken were 'be right back'. That kinda thing. Our first vid was "Mama Beat You"... better known as "Mine Would  Be You" by Blake Shelton. 

Then we did a re-enactment of a scenario where I misheard something: Kidney Stone or "Kitten Zone"?

And lastly, just Matt and I being us, named after this blog.

I present: Gamers In Love Episode 1!!!!

Grand Canyon Trip

Months ago we bought tickets to see Tim Hawkins in Phoenix, Arizona. It's not THAT horrible of a drive, I thought. A vacation for our 4 year anniversary. It'll be fun! So, a week after our anniversary the vacation started. We packed everything we'd need for tuna wraps, we packed fruit, carrots, zone bars, kind bars, powerade and Hobbes. :)
Hobbes was handmade by Melodie, Matt's sister, for Christmas 2014. Greatest gift. We love Calvin and Hobbes. Matt also packed tripods, new batteries, chargers and bigger SD cards for the camera. His inner photographer is ready to get serious!
We did not book any hotels before we left so we would have flexibility. When you don't have kids you can do that. Stop where/when you want and call it a night when you're sick of the road.
Our first stop was a ghost town. Marysvale. I'll post that on the ghost town blog after we visit it again. There are a few things we missed and I'd like to document the old mining town properly.
After that break to stretch our legs, we went to the North Rim Grand Canyon. Like my father, I need pictures of the signs to document where I'm at as I go through pictures. Dad would have people in the shot, but we didn't because... well...

Yeah. It was snowing... and we were both in shorts. What were we thinkin? 8000 feet in May. Hoping the sky cleared up by the time we got to the North Rim, we kept going... and got a picture overlooking the magnificent vista:

Hobbes first trip! The view, I'm told is amazing from here... but the canyon was covered in fog. We laughed at the idea of telling people we went to the Grand Canyon, but we didn't see it. We were blessed with one moment of fog dissipation and saw one amazing view! Worth the hours of driving just for that. The Grand Canyon is not to be missed. If it isn't on your bucket list, then 1- what's wrong with you? and 2- move it up on the list.

We then drove to Flagstaff and spent the night in a room with no towels, no shampoo and the smallest bed we've slept in. Our 'family' sleeping bag we use camping has more wiggle room. It's an adventure!
In the morning, we drove down to Phoenix. It's beautiful! Cactus! ... and they come in purple!!
There is one place on the map called "Cliff Dwellers", which was amazing! Apparently a woman bought this place in the 30's (or was it the 50's?), built these houses and lived there! So cool!

In Phoenix we stopped at Hole in the Rock. On the other side of the freeway is the Pueblo Grande, where the people who used the Hole in the Rock for their calendar.

Then to the Cornerstone Church in Chandler, AZ to see Tim Hawkins and John Branyan. If you don't know who they are, youtube them. They're clean and so funny! Tim Hawkins parodies songs, like a very family friendly Weird Al. Afterwards, we drove into the night back to our almost-dive of a hotel room.

Next morning, a long drive back to Salt Lake ahead, I checked the weather for Grand Canyon's South Rim. Weather was good, so we decided to go see the Canyon. Amazing! We met this friendly squirrel, Matt got really picture happy (holy cow the pictures I've got of flying ravens on this card... fortunately it's his job to go through all of them and figure out what he wants to do with them). It's hard not to be picture happy at the Grand Canyon. We have to go back. There was a 3 mile hike I wanted to take, but we didn't have 2 hours we could afford to lose. We were getting home after 11 as it is.

Here's Hobbes enjoying a tuna sandwich at the Grand Canyon. :) 

 There were more ruins on the South Rim. This is a Kiva, a ceremonial place for this little town of 1000.

 This is the Watchtower. I was a little disappointed it was built in the 30's by an architect admirer of ancient architecture rather than actually built by the Navajo and Southern Piute ancestors. Still impressive! :)

See ya, Grand Canyon! We'll come back! :D

April Sucked

No posts in April. We were too busy with stress and doctor visits. Matt has had tingling and numbness in his feet for quite a while and it was reaching a point we were concerned. After a month of tests and doctor appointments and anxious phone calls, we now know he has Insulin Resistance and neuropathy in his feet.
We've changed our diet and I gave away a lot of food and ingredients. No more Manwiches. No more white bread. Watch the sugar... cheating on this diet means neuropathy moving up the legs. The doctor said he's "VERY insulin resistant". Glucose is a big molecule and has been tearing the inside of his nerves.
Basically, we're living like we're diabetic. It works for me because Type 2 diabetes runs in my family, so I should be watching what I eat anyway. We've found some new favorite foods...

The adventure was at the Marvel Marathon. 26.5 hours of movies. Everything from Iron Man until the new Avengers: Age of Ultron. Overnight in the theatre was fun! We had to avoid the deals of popcorn and movie food and soda (which we both gave up the day he was diagnosed). So... what did we eat?
Our treat was Unreal Candy. Check them out of facebook. We love them! Lentil Snaps. I get them at Target and Winco. Yum yum! They're our potato chip replacement. We also ate carrots, I had zone bars, Matt had Thin bars, Kind bars and we made tuna wraps (wheat tortillas is practically our new bread). Tuna is wonderful! Our new staple.
We got a metal and certificate at the end of the whole thing. I love marathons and midnight showings. People are friendly in the theatre, they're more excited. Those times are when movie going is an outing. An experience. Not a big screen to replace your TV at home because you can't get this show right now at home. Anyway. End rant. :)

Matt's lost 25 lbs already and we're both feeling so much better. Eating right. Who knew it'd make you feel so good?

If only vampires were so inept

Hi, it’s Matt here. 

I haven’t posted anything for a while but I had to get this story out there for everyone.  I've been having some minor heath problems lately and my doctor thinks one of my problems is that I’m insulin resistant.  In order to confirm that I had to go in to the lab and they were going to do a test for my blood sugar and insulin levels during a controlled sugar spike.  So to start off, I had to go without food for 12 hours… ouch.  Not too bad, stop eating at 8:30 pm, don’t eat until after the test.  Seems like it would be easy, in fact I do that once in a while anyways because my laziness occasionally outweighs my hunger.  But when you have to go without food it will always make you think about the fact that you can’t eat, and you get hungry fast.  It’s like me saying okay, stand on one leg and whatever you do don’t think of a pickle, when you stop thinking of a pickle you can stop standing on one leg but as soon as you think of a pickle again you have to stand on just one leg.  Try that for one day and you’ll spend most of that day thinking of a pickle and standing on one leg.  Anyway, enough of the one-legged pickle hop, and back to food or lack of it.

There I am, 8:30 in the AM and I’m starving, I had just dropped Beka off at work and I’m walking into the doctor’s office. I go back for the test and I don’t see what I expect.  They are about to draw blood and I ask what it’s for. They say cholesterol. I had just had my cholesterol taken Saturday (it was scary bad, don’t ask) so I say, “hey, I just had my cholesterol taken Saturday” (déjà vu) so I tell the nurse what I’m supposed to be there for and she sends me back to the front desk.  Luckily, I discovered that before they drew the blood and saved me a poke.  Wait on paperwork for 10 minutes, and then back to the lab!  (What horrible writing, no wonder I’m a mathematician.)

Once back in the lab, they stab my finger for a blood sugar check, and the nurse tries to squeeze my finger to get more blood, but she can’t do it.  She is squeezing, not the fleshy part of my finger, but my knuckle.  And she’s not squeezing outward toward the tip, she’s squeezing it sideways.  In retrospect I don’t think that way would draw blood from a punctured transfusion bag let alone my finger.  Luckily a drop formed of its own volition and she had enough to run the test.  Then she draws blood.  Now I’m a big guy, I've got a big build, big arms, and big veins.  I drank a ton of water before I came in there because I knew I needed to get stuck and I wanted a lot of fluid available to draw. I've had great phlebotomists before, those that look carefully at the vein, aim the needle, and gently but quickly insert that needle into the vein.  My veins are great for that, huge easily accessible veins.  As she tried to draw my blood I was reminded of Tom Hanks on a desert isle spearing a fish.  But in the movie he hit the fish, she stabbed, then backed out, then in, then out, then in, then out, and finally gave up on that arm.  Did I mention I’m afraid of needles.  Not just afraid, painfully panic inducing fear.  I've mostly gotten over that fear and now I just barely tolerate the existence of those metallic skin piercing menaces.  So on to the other arm still trying to draw blood, and this is just the first draw, there are still 4 more to go.  After practicing her stringless sowing machine impression on my other arm she was finally able to get some blood.  I then drank an orange drink that was just flavored sugar water, it wasn't that bad.  If it was chilled it might have even tasted okay but the lukewarm wannabe tang just wasn't doing it for me. 

Thirty minutes later, an hour later, and hour and a half later, two hours later, we go through the same routine.  I go, like a man condemned, to the chair.  They wrap my arm with a little rubber strip, unwrap the needle and its READY! STAB! AIM! I could tell the nurse had the attitude that it was only necessary to get the needle under the skin near the vein, after that any pain I had to endure for her to find the vein was part of the process.  I didn’t want to say anything because I feel that it’s a good idea to never upset anyone holding a sharp object when they already intend to stab you with it.  Needless to say, I have some nice bruises on my arm, and my tolerance of needles is waning.  Well, off to bed, good night everyone!  J