Excessive Happiness

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Wow!

Posted 5:17 PM by Dezi Rollins, LSSP | 0 Thoughts

This past week has been really great! Last Saturday, Mom & I went to the Zales outlet store. Since I'm going to hit the big 3-0 a week from today, I decided that I should commemorate the big event with a ring! Mom agreed to help me pick out the perfect one. I must say, we did quite well!

Last Sunday was a coed shower for Becky & Eric. David and I got in the car and drove to Thornton, TX. It was a nice shower, and they got some great things. It's hard to believe that their wedding is in less than two weeks! The rest of the week went by as usual.

On Wednesday, I stopped by my parents' to go over the final draft of the wedding program for Becky's wedding. Mom & I had been talking about what to do for our mother-daughter vacation trip this summer. She suggested the possibility of a four-day cruise, and told me to research it. I met up with Heather at the mall, and did some shopping later. Once I got home, I found some great deals on cruises and forwarded them to Mom.

As of Thursday, we are officially booked for a Western Caribbean cruise on Carnival! We'll make one stop in Cozumel, and we booked our excursion, which is to swim with dolphins! I'm really excited about our cruise! We'll leave the 16th of July to drive down to Galveston. We'll board the ship on the 17th, and come home the 21st!

Right after I got the confirmation e-mail about the cruise, someone from the Zales store at the mall called to tell me that my ring, which I had taken to get sized, was ready! I went immediately to go pick it up. It's so pretty! I actually bought two rings, they are both gorgeous!

Yesterday, we got to spend some time with Braden & Heather, who were in town to celebrate their anniversary! We got some ice cream, looked around the Shops at Legacy, then came back for dinner at Lochrann's. It was really great to see them, and we had a lot of fun hanging out with them.

What a great week!

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Wisdom Teeth

Posted 9:12 PM by Dezi Rollins, LSSP | 0 Thoughts

At my last appointment, my dentist told me that I needed to have a wisdom tooth pulled. They gave me the name of an oral surgeon in Frisco, and I made my consultation appointent.

We looked at the x-ray, and decided to go ahead and pull all three, since one of the top teeth was pushing up against my molar, the other upper tooth was about to come in and hit the molar back there. The one on the bottom wasn't close to the surface, but we decided to take care of it now, as opposed to coming back later.

David and I drove up to the place a little before nine this morning. He had brought his laptop to keep him entertained while he was waiting. When it was time to go back, they took me to the room and got me situated. The nurse said the top two teeth looked easy to pull, so that was good.

I had already said I wanted to be knocked out for the procedure, so she was hooking me up to the monitors. We were laughing at how the sensors went halfway around my arm! The doctor came in, I felt a stick in my arm, then he said I should start feeling really drowsy. I said that I did, and that's all I remember, until I woke up with gauze in my mouth.

I remember the drive home, we changed out my gauze and then I don't remember anything until David woke me up to give me a pill and some food. I've been sleeping most of the day, and also putting an ice pack on my face. Opening my mouth to put the gauze in is rather interesting, and my left cheek (the side where I had a top and bottom tooth removed) is a bit swollen.

I'm a bit sore on the lower left side, but my upper teeth don't hurt. Then again, I'm also on pain meds. Before we started, she recommended that because of my size, I cut the pill in half and just take half. Let me tell you, half is enough. I agree that a whole pill would be too much. They also gave me some stuff to put on the removal site to help with pain.

We'll see what tomorrow brings. I'm glad to have this ordeal over with, and will be very glad when I can chew normally again!

Saturday, June 07, 2008

A Really Long Day!

Posted 8:25 PM by Dezi Rollins, LSSP | 0 Thoughts

Yesterday, my alarm went off at 4:30 a.m., which is typical during the week. However, I got up early yesterday to participate in the Race for the Cure. I originally was supposed to walk with a couple of friends, but they wound up having other conflicts, so I went at it alone.

I left the house about six-thirty and headed out to EDS, which was where they had parking. I got turned around a bit looking at the map, but quickly found where I was supposed to go. Since I had over an hour until the race started, I walked around for a bit. As I was going towards the starting place, I saw Dr. Trent, the director of the Frisco Community Band! Apparently, there was an ensemble playing during the race.

As we waited to start, a jazzercise group led us in some warm-up exercises. Let me tell you, it is interesting trying to do jazzercise while wearing a backpack! Oh well, it was a good warm-up. Finally, we all said the Pledge of Allegiance and sang the national anthem. Then it was time to start!

As I walked along the race route, it was neat to see so many women and men coming together for a great cause! I made sure to drink water at every water station, and even spotted the band along the race route! It was nice to see some familiar faces in the crowd!

I made good time, and finished the race in about fifty minutes! I was pleased with my time. Afterwards, I walked around to the different vendor tents, got lotsa stuff (a lot of pink stuff!), thend stopped off at Starbucks before heading home for a shower and a nap!

Unfortunately, the nap didn't happen, but I did get to lie down for a little while. I got up, ran some errands before packing up the car, and heading out to my parents' house. I needed to stop off at the dry cleaners to pick up my bridesmaid gown, which presented a bit of a logistical issue, since I had Roxie in the car. Oh well, I left the car running and locked the doors with my extra set of keys. Problem solved! They did a nice job on my gown, and I left it at my parents', since Mom is going to alter it for me!

I unloaded the car at my parents' house, and helped get ready for the block party. Their neighborhood has a block party every year, which was yesterday. The theme was Jimmy Buffett, so we all wore our Hawaiian shirts and enjoyed some great music. As always, the party was a lot of fun and I got some great pictures, which can be viewed here!

While the whole day was so much fun, I was completely exhausted when I got home, and my legs and feet hurt a lot! It was definitely worth it, and I really look forward to next year's race and block party!

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Women's Retreat

Posted 4:55 PM by Dezi Rollins, LSSP | 0 Thoughts

Last weekend, I went on the annual women's retreat. We left early on Saturday, and after making a stop at Starbucks, we were on our way! It took us about forty-five minutes to get there. After getting settled in, we started with an icebreaker activity. We had a list of items on a paper, and we had to find people to sign beside the item that described them, such as "married less than five years", "is an Aggie", or "has teenage children".

In the end, the person who had the most names got a prize. They had thirty-two and I had thirty. Oh well, it was fun going around and getting people to sign. After the icebreaker, we got into groups for discussion. Laura gave us a sheet with some discussion questions. For the first session, we were to think back to when we were thirteen and some of the worries/dreams we had back then, and how they influenced our choices.

We had a fun group in my opinion! The six of us in our group were a variety of ages and personalities. It was fun to talk about the fashions and hairstyles of our middle school days, as well as the issues that we faced. After group, we had lunch, which was a baked potato bar and pasta salad.

The afternoon session, we went back to age 20. In our group we were all in college, or about to get married when we were 20. It was neat to hear all the stories that they told from their college days. When we were finished with that session, we had a couple of hours of free time!

I strolled around the grounds a bit, taking pictures. Someone was teaching a painting lesson, I gave a try at it and had a lot of fun doing it! I don't think I'm the next Monet, but I thought it turned out fairly decent! When I was finished painting, I took my yarn and crochet hooks out to the patio, where a couple of women were crocheting.

It took me a few tries, but I finally got the hang of making a chain! My stitches were pretty uneven, but the more chains I made, the better they got. We congregated back for the afternoon session, where we heard from a couple of speakers. They talked about some of the struggles that they had gone through and how their faith had helped them through it. It was great to hear from different women in the church.

Afterwards, we had dinner, then watched 13 Going on 30. After we watched that, Laura introduced a new Bible study going on at the church. It's called Chick Flicks, and it involves watching a movie, then having a discussion afterward, with some Scripture references that relate to the theme. Our first study will be in a couple of weeks, and I'm really looking forward to it!

After the movie, I went back to my room and got ready for bed. My roommate came in shortly afterwards, we had some great chats! The next morning, we ate breakfast before having our final group session. We talked about where we are now, the fears and dreams we have, and how they guide our choices.

The last thing we did was to have a time of worship. Laura shared a message with us, then we all shared in the sacrament of Holy Communion together. As part of the tradition, we all wrote letters to ourselves, which Laura will send to us in three months. It was a great weekend, and I look forward to going next year! Here are pictures from the weekend!

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Stormy Weather

Posted 5:12 PM by Dezi Rollins, LSSP | 0 Thoughts

A not so fun part of this time of the year is the unpredictability of the weather. A couple of weeks ago, I was driving to the grocery store and heard about a tornado spotted in Ft. Worth, but everything in our area was okay. Just about the minute I got out of my car, it started raining, and it was pouring by the time I got to the door.

As I was doing my shopping, my cell phone rang, it was Mom. Apparently there was a tornado in the Frisco area, and she was telling me about it. Right about the time we were hanging up, an employee started telling people to go towards the dairy case. After a few minutes, they announced that everything was okay. It was sunny by the time I left!

A few days later, they were predicting more storms coming, and talking about a tornado that was spotted in west Texas. As I was driving home from class, it started pouring rain, but it got lighter and lighter as I drove towards home. We heard that storms were coming during the night, so I set the alarm on my cell phone to go off in case we lost power. In the early morning hours, I was awakened by the sound of the tornado siren.

I woke up David, grabbed my phone and Roxie, and we all headed into our safe hallway. We'd been sitting there less than a minute, when I got a text message from Mom. I called back, they had lost power, but we never did. We wound up not having any damage to our house, although there was one house in our neighborhood that had some roof damage. And it gave everyone something to talk about the next day.

Then on Thursday night this past week, the ominous clouds ahead indicated that we were in for more storms. The weather channel was predicting severe storms, and there was a tornado spotted around the Ft. Worth area. The footage from Ft. Worth was scary. Luckily, we only got a bunch of rain. Downtown Dallas got a lot of the storm, but we didn't.

I will be so glad when this severe storm season is over!

Sunday, April 06, 2008

Weekend of Culture

Posted 8:29 PM by Dezi Rollins, LSSP | 0 Thoughts

This has definitely been a weekend of cultural experiences! Yesterday, Mom, my aunt, cousin and I went to the Metropolitan Opera! Well, actually we went to the Tinseltown Plano theatre, where the Met's production of La Boheme was shown.

We had gone to some of the Met performances before, it's a really neat program, you can sit there in your jeans and eat popcorn while enjoying a spectacular view of the opera! Even if we were in the actual theatre in New York, we would not have as good a view as we do at these shows!

Between acts, we get to see the stage being taken apart and put together for the next part. We get to hear interviews with the principals and the conductor. Yesterday's host was Renee Fleming. She also talked about some of her experiences in the roles that we were watching, which was also neat.

The actual opera was amazing. Having seen Rent, which is based off of La Boheme, I knew the main gist of the story. There were a lot of differences, but the overall plot was recognizable. The music and the singing were also superb! I'm so glad we went to that!

Today's cultural experience was very special. Mom and I went to hear the Dallas Symphony Orchestra play The Wizard of Oz. They had the movie playing on a big screen, and the orchestra played the music along with the movie. It was really neat! They also had a couple of the original Munchkins there, and they were brought out on stage and we got to hear from them.

It was a very cultural weekend! Now onto the rest of the week!

Sunday, March 30, 2008

In Conclusion.....

Posted 8:44 PM by Dezi Rollins, LSSP | 0 Thoughts

This month has definitely been action packed! First, we had the crazy days of snow during the first week! Then the next weekend, some of my female family members and I piled in two cars to drive out to Jackson, Mississippi, home of the Mal's St. Paddy's Day parade. We attended in honor of the Sweet Potato Queens, and had some great costumes that Mom put together!

Mom had the idea for all of us to give a gift to all the other queens, which was definitely a hit! Some of the gifts include: lip gloss, bubbles, necklaces, as well as other girly things! We enjoyed playing games, and watching everyone try out Aunt Carol's Wii. The parade was a lot of fun, we all got lotsa beads as well as various other trinkets. Pictures of the festivities can be viewed here.

The day after we returned back home, I got to experience my first mammogram. I won't go into details about that, but it was not nearly as bad as I imagined in my head. I'm all clear until next year! The best part is that afterwards, Mom and I went to eat cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory!

On Good Friday, David and I went to Lovers Lane UMC to attend their service. Their choir was performing the same music as Grace Avenue, however Becky was one of the soloists at Lovers Lane, (and I hadn't been to choir rehearsals this sememster due to my Wednesday night class), so that's where we went. After the service, Becky, her fiance Eric, her parents, along with David & I went to dinner at Macaroni Grille. Since we were a little late for the dinner crowd, we were seated fairly quickly. The food was great and the company was superb! We had a fabulous time!

Saturday was spent getting stuff ready for Easter. I got creative this year and had some fun with Easter eggs. I dyed some, then tried different decorating styles for each one: painting flowers with a q-tip, making dots with an eraser, painting with a toothbrush, gluing rick rack to an egg, decoupage with tissue paper (wound up looking like duct tape since I used silver paper), as well as attempting to paint stripes. They came out looking pretty cute, although there's no way I'm putting Martha Stewart out of a job!

After Easter service, we decided to go have brunch. The entire city of Frisco decided to go to the same restaurant as us. Once we were seated, our breakfast was wonderful. After finishing, we headed back to the house for a bit before heading out to DeSoto. It was good to see the family and watch the kids in the egg hunt.

This past week was spent getting things ready for my class presentation on Wednesday. I was rather stressed about it, but it went really well. Friday night, I went for my weekly torture session of yoga, having missed a couple weeks due to travel/Good Friday. It was definitely tough, but I left with a big grin on my face!

Yesterday was the first annual Rover Rally, put on by the Frisco Dog Park, Inc. I showed up early to help with set-up, although there wasn't a whole lot to set up at my booth. I had been assigned to work the Bobbing for Weenies booth, which was an absolute hoot to watch! The dogs were to try to get a vienna sausage from a bucket, it was so funny to watch! Most of the dogs weren't quite sure what to do, several of them (Roxie included), we had to hand them a weenie instead of them bobbing for it. Oh well.

I had entered Roxie into the dog contest, in the best tail wagging category. At home, her tail is almost constantly going, but when it came time to go before the judges, she got performance anxiety! She wagged a little bit when I talked to her on stage, but not enough to win. Oh well, maybe I'll teach her a trick for next year's contest. Here are the pics.

All in all, March was an eventful month, and April is looking to be packed as well!