My trip to the spa. And by "spa," I mean "dentist."

I had the weirdest dental experience last week. I've been in Jackson for over a year now, but I hadn't taken the time to go to the dentist, partially because I felt like I would be betraying my dentist from the past 15 years and partially because I just kept forgetting.

Well, since we will most likely not be in Jackson next year and will have who-knows-what kind of insurance (more on that to come), Brad and I decided that we needed to get an appointment now and then follow up with another in 6 months. I went first.

The new patient information recommended allotting 90 minutes for the first visit. I added a little cushion to both ends, just in case. When I arrived, in addition to handing over my insurance card and paperwork, I was asked to fill out a "comfort care" clipboard. What is that, you ask? At this particular dentist, it's a list full of complimentary "comforts" that patients can take advantage of prior to and during their appointments. "Comforts" include: paraffin hand dips, hand massages, neck massages, heated neck rolls, heated eye covers, and massage chairs. The list was even longer than that. Seriously. And, while you're in the dental chair, they give you sunglasses so that the light overhead doesn't hurt your eyes. You also receive a complimentary tube of chapstick, so that your mouth doesn't dry out after being open for so long. Soothing music and mood lighting (in the "comfort care" room that you go to prior to your cleaning) add to the effect as well.

I'm not even kidding.

The only downside was that I was actually there for almost a full two hours. I skidded into my office about 3 minutes before my next meeting started.

My theory is that "comfort care" is provided in an attempt to assuage anyone who harbors "dentist anxiety." I will say, I don't recommend the eye covers during your cleaning; it was super creepy not to be able to see what was going in to my mouth. Yikes! Just stick to the fancy sunglasses. Trust me on this one.

Along came a spider

Yesterday, I dropped Brad off to pick up a rental car to use this week as he travels for college fairs. As I was driving away from Enterprise and thinking about my upcoming trip to Sam's, I felt a little tickle on my arm. For a split second, I considered just flicking at it, but for some reason, I decided to look.

Good thing I did! I large (ok, quarter-sized), yellow-y/green-y/brown-y colored SPIDER was crawling up the back of my arm!!

HOW?? I have no idea how it got there.

I'm not usually a OMG-A-SPIDER!AGHHH! kind of girl...unless it's crawling on me. I don't handle that well. I started yelling (alone in my car, mind you) and swerving a little (thankfully, I was just on an access road.) and pulled into a nearby parking lot. Little Spider was doing some kind of weird push-up type exercise on my arm. WHY? I grabbed a pad of paper and rolled down the window, planning to flick if off.

I flicked, and it did nothing.

I flicked again, still accomplishing nothing. I sort of panicked, wondering if spiders are vindictive creatures. I could imagine him going, "Muahahaha, you tried to get rid of me; watch me bite off your arm now, Missy!"

With this image in mind, I scraped the pad down the back of my arm, and FINALLY got him off. I shivered and shuddered for the rest of the day. I feel fairly traumatized.

And, on an unrelated note, how great is Sam's? Brad and I didn't even fix a real lunch; we just ate all of the free samples and felt happy and full.

Moments from Today

In class this morning, having an isolated discussion about Jesus' baptism:

"So, did God say 'This is my Son,' or was it that bird who said it?"

By "that bird," I'm assuming he meant the form of a dove that the Holy Spirit took, and I have a hard time envisioning the Holy Spirit speaking, beak rattling off words...

After I shoved a sugar cookie at him, Weston said:

"I feel like the Boswells are always supplying me with food."

Maybe so. Two Sundays in a row, he ate lunch at our house. There was cake each time. Perhaps we're actually his sugar providers.

During the writing lab that I facilitate for some international students:

"What if I write about prostitution?"

Um...like, the legalization of prostitution? I bet Union professors don't see that very often.

While having our weekly English conversation visit with our Iranian friends and playing "Apples to Apples":

"I am your wife! Pick my card!"

Ha! Apparently, that's an international sentiment.

Colorful characters in my life. So colorful.

Kat!

Union just had Fall Break, and for the second year in a row, I journeyed to St. Louis to visit Kat! In a turn of awesomeness, Fall Break fell over Kat's birthday weekend for the second year in a row. Since we currently live in relatively "near" proximity, I trotted on over to celebrate with her.

For those of you who don't know Kat (or haven't read about her here), she one of my very best friends and favorite people. Two years ago, she visited me in Ukraine, and we had several magnificent adventures, like this, this, this, this, annnnnnd this. We've been friends since our first semester of college, and I love her dearly.

I drove to St. Louis on Thursday, and we spent around 10ish hours just talking. Kat made a crafty project to celebrate the onset of fall (I watched. I'm so helpful. I also snacked while watching.) and also a soup from a recipe she found on Pinterest (***I finally broke down and got a Pinterest account. That may have been a BAD idea...). It was delightful.

Saturday was spent primarily creating our second annual birthday celebrate site. Last year, Kat and I plus her besties, Kayla and Krista, built a fort (a la sheet forts of yore) and slept in it the whole weekend. SO. MUCH. FUN. This year, we upgraded it (unfortunately, I forgot my camera...I'm so sorry...). We engineered it to hang from the ceiling, which allowed for us to stand up. We were able to fit two twin mattresses and a queen size mattress inside. We are very good at fort-building.

Perhaps my favorite part was the banner that we made. It was a flag/pendant banner made out of felt. Kat drew letters BACKWARDS (so that when I cut them out, the marker lines would be on the back. She's awesome. No, really.), and I cut them out. We made a FANTASTIC banner with the name of our fort : Room of Requirement. Mock us all you want; we slept so much better in there because of the very appropriate name.

Brad, Krista, and Krista's husband, Tony, joined us for the rest of the weekend (and we ALL slept in the fort!), and a tremendous time was had by all. I'm sorry you weren't there for the fun. And barbecue. And chicken curry. And ridiculous amount of laughter.

Our fort next year will be even more awesome. And, I'll take pictures. Happy birthday, Kat!

The Fall of the House of Boswell.

That's a dramatic title...but it seems ever so slightly appropriate. We've had a lot of mishaps in our house this week. The sink/cabinet/flooding issue was the biggest, but there have been a few other crazies.

One side of our closet shelving unit collapsed. Thankfully, it was while I was not at home. I'm fairly certain I would have...what's the word?...freaked OUT if I'd been here to hear it! I went into the closet after work on Friday to put something away, and lo and behold: half of our wardrobe was on the floor, trapped by a shelf, and covered in drywall. That's right- the shelf ripped out the screws holding it to the wall and pulled out some drywall. Oi. Thankfully, Landlord came and fixed it on Saturday. I still haven't put everything back on the bar yet. Call me cautious.

Remember the sink/flooding fiasco? The same day that all of that went down, something weird and bizarre happened. Mom, Dad, and I had started tackling the kitchen when Brad called from the road and needed some information off his computer. While I was pulling that up for him, I checked my work email, just for fun. This is what I found:

My son found a check that you wrote out to for October's rent. It was on our street over by the Hospital. I looked your name up on the internet and found you at Union. I don't know what you want me to do with it. You can e-mail me back or call me.

What?? I called Landlord back (approximately 10 minutes after calling him about the flooding) and filled him in. His response was, "I knew I hadn't cashed that check. I'll call her back." Crazy.

Crazier still was when I found out that the woman who found our check teaches the daughter of my co-worker. She saw the two of us in a picture together when she Googled me and found me at Union.

Ca-razy.

To continue the Fall of the House of Boswell, this past Sunday, one of the beams of the railing on our backporch collapsed. We're falling apart around here.

Sometimes, things just go awry.

I really wish I'd thought to take pictures of the crazy things going on at our house this week (sidenote: I almost wrote "at casa Boswell" because I think sometimes it's a default to write cute-sy things like that. THEN, I realized that writing in Spanish felt a little disloyal to my Ukrainian roots...the only thing is " at Dom Boswell" looks weird.).

Anyway, the weekend was great! My family was here for Union's Family Weekend (and the Z's, too!!). We saw Tangled (you know I LOVE that movie, right?) for movie-on-the-lawn, ate a lot, went to All-Sing (you know, one of those shows at universities where groups get together and perform), and had a grand old time. Even Sunday, The Day When Things Went Awry, started out great. Mom made "Thanksgiving" for lunch, we had birthday cake for Amiee, and the Brassarts (and former Brassart) went to see The Help (again...). Brad had to leave for a few days of traveling to college fairs, but other than that, things were great.

Then, we came home from the movie.

When we walked in the house, a freakish and weird sound was coming from the kitchen. I honestly thought that the garbage disposal had been turned on, but we clearly hadn't left it on. I walked in to the kitchen and started poking around to see what could be making the noise. I quickly realized that there was about 2 inches of water covering the kitchen floor.

What??

For some still unknown reason, a pipe under the sink split apart and water flooded our cabinets and floor. I never run the dishwasher when I'm not home, so I have no idea what happened. It led to our cabinets and counters being ripped out and replaced. One of the men from church is a carpenter, so our landlord gave him a key to the house (with my acknowledgement, of course) in order to get to work in the kitchen.

Like a magic trick, I left Wednesday morning with a kitchen that had all of its parts. I came home to find the entire right side of the kitchen (cabinets, counters, sink) completely gutted. It made doing anything that required water a little unconventional...I put the hall bathroom sink to work. The next day, I left with everything gutted and came home to a fully restored AND upgraded kitchen! Yay!

Everything in the kitchen is back to normal. Whew.

Then the rent check went missing and the closet fell apart...