Did you know that there's a show called Alaskan Bush People?

Because there is.

It's on Discovery.

It's about a couple raising their seven kids, six of whom are adults, out in the wild.

And it's just about the dumbest, strangest thing I've ever seen on television.

Mom turned me onto it when she got here today because we were looking for something on TV, and she said her boyfriend introduced her to it. He watches it for the survival stuff, she watches it because it's hilarious.

And then we spent the next six hours watching a marathon of it and laughing hysterically.

Mom and I always find things to laugh about when we're together. I just never expected it to be this. I'm utterly fascinated.

In other news, Ashley and Didrik brought me an Easter basket for some cheering up, I really can't wait to leave tomorrow, and I am so, so happy my mom is here?

1/8/15: aka the day I missed my dream because of vacation.

So you know what is a perk of living in a big city like New York that I had never really considered until today?

TV shows and movies, sometimes they film on location instead of on sets and sound stages.

You know what one of my favorite TV shows of all time is? Law & Order: SVU. I'm not 100% sure, but I think I've seen every episode, and there are more than 350.

So imagine my utter devastation (okay that might be a little hyperbolic) when Holly called me tonight and said "Hey guess what. Law and Order is setting up in the street outside our apartment right now."

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!

Yeah.

She did some investigating and found out that they are shooting in Spiegel. AKA the restaurant I go to like three times a week. And apparently the episode will be airing February 4th, so at least I can see it and point it out and be like "Hey, I know that!"

Welcome to life in New York. I can get used to this.

Sometimes I am a senior citizen on the inside.

I’ve been sleeping in my grandmother’s sun room this week (with the blinds pulled down) because that’s where her recliners are and I started sleeping here when I needed to sleep upright. It’s been fine. 

But the one bad thing about sleeping here and on the first floor in this house in general is that when one person is up, EVERYONE is up. And my grandmother gets up between 8 and 8:30 every morning. Which is way earlier than I am used to when I don’t have to be up that early. (Surprisingly, I haven’t taken a single nap this week.)

So all of that is to say that between the early wake up and the lack of wifi, I’ve seen a lot of television at hours when I’ve generally never even though to watch tv. And since my grandmother is, well, my grandmother, I’ve generally been watching whatever she wants. And it’s the same thing every day. Lots of game shows mixed in with a little bit of news. I had no idea Alfonso Ribeiro (Carlton from The Fresh Prince) even hosted a game show but he does. I actually really like Let’s Make a Deal and The Price is Right, I just hadn’t watched The Price is Right in a very, very long time before this week and now I like it. After the game shows we watch Steve Harvey at 3, Ellen at 4 (I got her to give in on the Ellen, I like her). And at night, we watch the news, Family Feud, Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, more Family Feud, and then the news. I’m actually really good at Wheel of Fortune, I always have been. It’s weird.

But we actually missed our TV ritual tonight because I went with her to the other cliché senior citizen event: Bingo! And it was fun. It was loud and neither of us won anything but we went with my grandma’s best friend who is the funniest old lady you will ever meet in your life. She is just as sarcastic as I am and dishes out as much as I do and I seriously just hope that I am as awesome as she is when I’m in my 70s. And my grandma gets even funnier and more sarcastic when she’s with her best friend; she frequently refers to she and her as “Frick and Frack.” And it’s so accurate.

The only bad news is that my migraine has been out of control since I was on the back from Raleigh Saturday evening and I had got it back down to manageable this afternoon but the lights and all the noise made me sick again tonight. Totally worth it, though. I needed to get out of this house and do something that didn’t involve my grandma being snappy and she’s happy when she plays Bingo even when she doesn’t win.

Bad News then Good News

I'm in the hospital for IV steroids. Should be out tomorrow.

Good news is I have Wifi. House of Cards binging is underway.

And oh yeah, I have funding for NYU for the spring semester. God is good.

Post #2000. Wow.

Insert heart emoticon here. :D

I AM SO HAPPY RIGHT NOW.

Tonight was the night I've been waiting for for two months. The night I got to go to Long Island to meet Maks, Val, Tony and some of the other Dancing with the Stars dancers that I have loved watching for so long.

Everyone got to take a group shot before the dancers spread through the room where you could talk to them individually.

Artem, Tony, Sharna, Peta, me, Henry, Jenna, Serge, Val...and Maks kneeling because staffers taking pictures kept telling him he was too tall. After this, I got to hug both Maks and Val (which is what I really wanted) and Maks grabbed my hand and stepped me out towards the exit. I was so happy that I forgot one of the staffers had my phone, so Val grabbed it and told me he was going to keep it. ;)

Peta, Maks, and Jenna split before I could get a selfie with them (which was lame because this thing was not that long and everyone else stayed, not to mention we paid good money for this opportunity). I was especially sad about Maks because I was going to get him to say hi to Mom on video because he's her favorite and would have flipped, but oh well.

Henry is the sweetest!

These are only some of the selfies Val took when I handed him my phone. But I don't mind. ;)

The world is Sharna's catwalk. LOOK AT HER. 

Artem is just as gentle and quiet as he seemed on TV this season. :)

Serge was one of the only two (Jenna was the other) that I wasn't familiar with before tonight, but I absolutely adore him! He is precious and so, so sweet.

I caught Tony in the hallway as I'm pretty sure he was leaving, and he still stopped and took a picture with me and signed my autograph book. Too kind.

I thought Val was selfie happy...then I met Alexander. He's kind of Twitter famous among DWTS lovers, particularly Maks and Val fans as he's grown up with them, so I immediately knew who he was. He took a lot more pictures than this, I just figured you didn't need to see them all. He was so much fun. 

All in all, an amazing experience. I'm so thrilled I got to meet this group. They're so gracious and kind. Not to mention even more beautiful in person, though I didn't know that was possible.

And now I am off to stare at my autograph book for a while, and then I'll crash. ;)

I want to go to Stars Hollow.

I was not in the mood for anything or anyone besides Netflix and the Gilmore girls today.

I don't know what was wrong with me today. I was just not in a good mood.

Sleep can help that. Yep, Netflix and sleep. That was my day.

Also, Jess is mine. There's your warning. ;)

I'd forgotten how long two hours can feel.

Well, after two weeks off (including the holiday), I made it back to class today. Very exciting.

It was exhausting, though. I took cabs to the bank (near my Monday class building) and then back from the health center (after class) so I did do some walking but I didn't push myself too hard since this is way more activity than I've had in two weeks.

Class was good. It was nice to be back. But it was also very long. (See post title.)

After that I had a psychiatry appointment to get a new prescription for my anxiety/depression med, which basically turned into another therapy session because the doc and his med student assistant girl needed to get to know me. Fine with me. I'm so stressed out I'll talk to anyone who will listen and let me vent.

Then, I came home and my amazing super came by and fixed my recliner! He screwed the arm/side back to the frame and the rest of the chair and now I can sit in it and it doesn't fall over! And you can hardly tell. There's just one black square at the bottom of the chair where he screwed it all into place but it's black on dark wood plus it's at the very bottom by the ground so no one is going to look down there to notice it. He asked me beforehand if I cared what it looked like from the outside and I just said no, but what I was thinking was "considering my other option was duct tape? I'm gonna go with no." :p And he wouldn't let me pay him for him, but it only took him like 15 minutes. He really is awesome. I love living here.

After that, I was a bad girl and spent the rest of the day watching Gilmore Girls on Netflix.

I fell asleep around 10:00. I haven't been sleeping well lately, despite being super exhausted. Gee, I wonder why.

A Sister Thanksgiving. And I need your help.

Today was really really great.

Holly and I slept until 3 in the afternoon. Mostly because we stayed up half the night watching stuff on TV that really could have waited but didn't. But then she started cooking and I laid here but helped her when she needed me and when I could with one arm. We watched The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Gilmore Girls while that went on.

It was all done by 6:30. We had chicken, asparagus, garlic mashed potatoes and stuffed mushrooms. And it was very delicious and reminiscent of meals by Mom.

We watched more Gilmore Girls until the Seahawks/49ers game and then proceeded to watch the Seahawks kick 49er tail.

After that, I took a shower while Holly did the dishes.

And then, she introduced me to Frozen. That was certainly...interesting, to say the least. All I can think right now is "Do you want to build a snowmaaaaaaan?!" But so fitting to have a sisterly love movie when it's just the two of us here. I was feeling kind of down and homesick yesterday being here for the holiday, but today turned out really great, and I'm super thankful for Holly's effort into the meal.

But here's how I need your help. After talking it over with my mom, I have decided to set up an online fundraiser to raise money to go towards next semester's tuition. The internet can be a powerful source, and I really feel out of options here. Please read my story, donate as much as you can, and spread the word, and if you can't donate, just pray that God will get this to the people who can help me. Thank you in advance. Here's the link:

http://www.youcaring.com/tuition-fundraiser/help-mallory-go-to-grad-school/269861

As if I didn't have enough aches and pains.

I have to wear this sling with my arm totally strapped to me until December 15th. As you might imagine, having your arm in that position all the time makes everything tense up. And when everything tenses up and stays tense for an extended period, it makes muscles hurt very badly.

So that's why I woke up today feeling like someone was sitting on my chest. The muscles across my collar bone and the top of my chest were a mess all day today. Loads of fun.

Tonight was the DWTS finale. I have loved Alfonso Ribeiro since the Fresh Prince years, but seeing him dance on this show has made me love him even more. He was my second favorite of the season, so if my favorite had to land in 3rd place, I'm glad he won.

It's strange to use "only" and "concussion" in the same sentence.

So, good news is I only seem to have a mild concussion from Wednesday, which would be enough to cause the memory issues I've had since I hit my head. I was thankful to actually get checked out, since the ER didn't do anything except clean up the area of my head and seal the wound and tell me to go home.

And then I came home and fell asleep for several hours because I didn't sleep much last night. Probably because I'd slept all day from the awful pain from the hit. And also because I ran out of Vicodin that allowed me to sleep through my shoulder pain on Monday.

When I woke up, I went and got my new set of keys from my super (hooray! that man is awesome, seriously), checked my box and found a Vicodin prescription that my surgeon sent me to get me to surgery because I can't get a pain management place to call me back. Then I went to the pharmacy. I got that filled, and found out that even though my primary care said she was sending in a Levothyroxine prescription when I left her office today because my endocrine doctor is now on medical leave so I can't get it from her she actually didn't send it in, but luckily I still have a few more pills. I also bought an ice pack that the pharmacist said would be excellent for my shoulder surgery and an Ace bandage type thing just in case the strap that is on the ice pack doesn't work, because that's happened to me before. Then I went to Supper for some lemon pasta because, well, it's lemon pasta and since I had all my keys now, my roommate didn't have to wait around to make sure I could get back in the apartment.

I came back and got caught up in random TV shows for several hours. The roommate made a cake for absolutely no reason. Holly came home and we watched John Oliver and The Big Bang Theory. I probably should have been reading stuff for Monday, but oh well. My head seems to finally be healing from Wednesday, so I might actually be able to focus on reading something tomorrow. That's seemed pretty impossible the past few days.

I really hope my blog takes a more positive tone soon. I feel like I've had nothing but bad news for a while now and I don't like it. Sorry for being such a downer, but I'm doing my best.

In other news, how about that Shonda Rhimes?!

Lesson learned: Must be more careful, at least when my scalp is involved.

I have had a splitting headache for the vast majority of the day. Like the couldn't move kind.

And when I could move, it was only to go sit in the recliner and watch The Big Bang Theory, Grey's Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get Away With Murder for several hours, and finally manage to take a shower to wash all the blood and goop out of my hair.

This may have been a small cut, but oh my goodness, I had forgotten what it felt like to actually cringe when massaging shampoo into your hair. And even though the cut is on the left side of the top, it hurts everywhere. Which I can only assume is due to bruising on my scalp from the hit.

I'm a little concerned by the fact that I'm having a lot of trouble remembering things, but I'm sure it's probably nothing.

But yeah, that pretty much sums up my Thursday.

Oh, that and I got to help one of my soccer brothers find sources for his English paper. I told him I was happy to help and that being in political science, you get a lot of practice at digging for paper sources. Which is totally true. Besides, it took me like 20 minutes to find all the information he needed, and that was while watching Scandal. Why not help? :)

All I'm doing tomorrow is going to get the cut checked to make sure it's healing okay, but Holly has been kind enough to put Neosporin on it a couple times, and she says it's looking good, so that should be fine.

Sleep time. Yay.

I'm too old for this.

And by "this", I mean waking up just after 7:00 am, because my body decided to skip the last half hour of sleep I could get, and still being awake past 2:30 am, because starting to do laundry at 10:30 at night and then watching episodes of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver when we got home from the laundromat seemed like a really smart plan for Holly and me. Ha!

Let's see there was class. My professor was almost 40 minutes late, but luckily he warned us last week that would probably happen because

we had our exam today. The only exam of the class. I think I did okay. I feel good about 2 of the 3 essays. It felt eerily similar to essay exams from Thornton or Schroeder back at Campbell.

Then I went to McDonald's and ate lunch and read one of my Civil War articles until

therapy time. Nothing like getting confronted by someone who's only spent a couple hours with you about your problem of attracting broken people because you want to fix them to humble you real quick like.

Then I came home.

I tried to read some more but decided to take a nap.

Then my nap got ruined.

I tried to read again.

Ate dinner.

Took a shower.

Holly finally woke up.

We got distracted by Dancing with the Stars.

And then John Oliver.

And then finally laundry. We both needed to do it very badly.

And then Gotham while we, or rather she folded.

And then more John Oliver. "Cranberries taste like what raspberries drink before their colonoscopy." You can thank John Oliver for that image now in your head.

And that's how I ended up blogging at 2:45 am.

Good thing I don't have to be anywhere for another 12 hours because I need sleep and plan to sleep hard.

Saved by the Bell

Or in this case, the alarm.

I was having nightmares all night that someone was trying to kill me, and like, I was just about to be caught by the killer when my alarm went off. Whew. It startled me and relieved me at the same time.

And so the rest of the day, I kept thinking about that. Not that I could remember details of the dream, but I could remember the feelings of fear. Isn't it crazy how bad feelings can haunt you, even if you don't remember the details about what made you feel that way?

I really like having only one class a day. It makes my days feel short. But man, these two hour classes feel so long. I remember when I thought the 80 minute classes at Campbell felt long. Now, those 50 minute classes would probably feel lightning fast.

There's a huge knot in the back of my right shoulder. Most of the day, I thought I was just tense from stress, but no, you can feel the whole muscle raised up it's so tight. Come on heating pad, work your magic. Also, my mom is an angel for giving me her good heating pad. I haven't been able to find one like it anywhere and it is so awesome. I hope she found one in NC.

I really miss my mom. And my brothers. I wish I didn't miss them so much. I know I've said that before, but yeah.

How to Get Away with Murder. Watch it.

I have 3 more episodes of Criminal Minds to get through. I'm going to be sad when they're over. This show is good. But at least new episodes are still airing, so I have that to look forward to.

It's 2 am and I'm beat. I shouldn't be, considering the sleep I got this evening while Holly was doing the laundry and going to the grocery store (she won't even let me strain myself to come help her, so sweet) and how much I slept last night, but I am. But I have to wait for Holly to come help me make my bed. So....I'll watch Criminal Minds. There's a shocker.

Ah, look at all the pretty people!

I'm pretty sure that's not how "Eleanor Rigby" goes. Oh well.

So I've gotten back into Dancing with the Stars the past couple of seasons. I don't watch it live, but I watch the dances of the celebrities that I care about on Youtube and look at the scores and eliminations on Wikipedia. That way, I get all the relevant information and skip all the other stuff. But since I started watching in Season 4 and that was, ohhh....seven and a half years ago, I've grown rather attached to some of the pros. Some haven't been there the whole time, but still. They're phenomenal dancers and even better looking, so what's not to like? ;)

Three of my favorite pros, Maks and Val Chmerkovskiy and Tony Dovolani have several dance studios centered around NYC (Maks and Val grew up in Brooklyn and Tony lives in CT, so it's not surprising), and so one of my "NYC Bucket List" items was to find a way to meet Maks and Val. They're Mom's and my favorites. Well, last December they and some of their dance friends created this massive dance show called Sway that sold out several nights. Well, when I heard that they were creating Sway 2.0, my first thought was "This is my chance!"

And then my second thought was, "Crap, they probably use strobe lights."

So I emailed their dance studio company email set up for the show to ask. I got a response back via Twitter that, yes, there are strobe lights. Dang it. BUT I then got an email today saying that there were meet and greet tickets available that were just for the meet and greet, without paying for the show. SCORE.

If this blog abruptly stops after December 19, this is your warning now that it's because I died and went straight to heaven after getting to touch and talk to the Chmerkovskiy brothers.

I'm paying a ridiculous amount for this, and it involves taking two subways and a bus to somewhere in Long Island, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to meet these guys, and some other pros that I've grown to love.

Look!

Aren't they so pretty?

Across the top, that's Val, Maks, and Tony. The girls are Sharna and Peta, both DWTS pros, and Jenna, a DWTS dancer. The guys on the bottom are Artem, a new DWTS pro, Serge, a friend of the guys, and Henry, a DWTS dancer.

I called Mom and told her and she laughed hysterically and then said "Kiss Maks and tell him it's from your mother. Kiss him ON THE CHEEK." She told me it's ridiculous that I'm paying so much for a meet and greet, but she doesn't blame me one bit.

Shoot. When it comes to him, Val, and Artem, I'll be kissing them all for me.

I can't help it. They're just so pretty.

Hello, fall break.

The next four days will be busy with reading and essay writing and trying to get ahead before my surgery and two big pre-surgery doctor appointments.

Today, however, I focused on two things.

Sleep. Lots of sleep.

And Criminal Minds.

I call that a good day.

I needed it.

The best kind of love.

So as I've mentioned, I've been binge-watching Criminal Minds lately. God bless 2014 and all the websites that upload free episodes of TV shows that you can't access on network websites.

Well, in one of the episodes I watched yesterday, a group of teens were trapped in a metal cage and forced to participate in this bizarre battle-to-the-death by two creepy obsessed gamers. It involved shock collars and was just so creepy. In one scene, one of the gamers called one of the girls, Wendy, forward because it was her turn to go into a round, and she started panicking and sobbing even harder. One of the gamers shocked her hard, and so she was going to go forward, but suddenly, the boy who had a longstanding crush on her, Billy, jumped in front of her and shouted, "I'll take her place! I'll go in her place!"

It didn't mean much to me at the time, it seemed like an expected turn in a TV show (what came next wasn't, but that's for another time), but then, this morning at church, we sang the song "This is Amazing Grace," and since then, I've been thinking about this scene.  You probably know the song, but in case you don't, the chorus goes like this:

This is amazing grace
This is unfailing love
That you would take my place
That you would bear my cross
You would lay down your life
So I could be set free
Jesus, I sing for
All that you've done for me

And those words got me thinking about Billy and Wendy and that scene. Yes, it was just two teenagers, a stupid crush, a deathly video game brought to life, and on a TV show, no less, but what Billy did, it was such a vivid picture to me of what Jesus did.  Billy's love for Wendy, whatever form it may have been in as a high school boy, caused him to step forward, thinking he could save her from harm by offering himself instead. Billy offered to take Wendy's place in the gun battle. He knew it wasn't going to end well for him, but he knew that he would rather save her than watch her die.

Jesus knew it wasn't going to end well for him, either. He knew as he carried that cross up the hill exactly what kind of pain and torture waited for him, but he walked forward anyway. He offered himself up so that I, you, every one of us could be saved. He gave his life for us. Plain and simple. And anyone who has come to know Jesus knows that his love was, is, and will always be the perfect love that all broken souls long for. He took wrath upon himself so that we didn't have to.

John 15:13 Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

Billy cared for Wendy so deeply that he was willing to literally lay down his life to protect her.  The Bible says right there in that verse that that is the strongest, best, ultimate kind of love we could ever ask for.  And the important thing is that in the game, Wendy hadn't done anything to deserve to die, it was all at the whim of her kidnappers, but we did. We deserved to die and God made a way, anyway, so that we didn't have to.

People throw around the phrase "I would take a bullet for you" or the like as a way of showing their closeness with or adoration for someone else, but I think a lot of us, if it came down to it, would probably pick ourselves over other people. Even me. There is only a select group of people that I would even think about giving my life for, but in the moment, I'm not sure how I would react. That's the honest truth, my selfish nature at its best. I like living too much.

I want to be like Jesus, though. Like Billy. To love everyone around me so deeply that I would give anything to save their lives. Even myself. Because that's the best kind of love, that sacrificial love, and I've been the recipient of it too many times to not pay it forward.

Mistakes in pushing myself.

Pushing yourself to your limits can be a good thing. I push myself to work when my head pain makes me want to just sleep. I get outside when my mind tells me I should just stay in my room. Oftentimes, it can show you that you're capable of more than you thought you were.

But sometimes, I push myself for things that aren't always worth it. I made myself do the Anima video that got released last night. I told myself that the new videos get looked at more, and I wanted anyone who saw this new video being released to have captions if they needed them.

Bad idea. Bad bad idea.  My shoulder did not like that at all.  Looks like I really will have to put my Anima work on hold for a while. That makes me sad.

You know, I never realized how many muscles a simple act like typing actually required before this. Random thought.

I spent most of today sleeping hard as a rock. I didn't even get up to eat until 5:00. Then I watched my soccer boys get another solid win via the livestream and followed along on Twitter to see Wolfpack football get another win, too, so that was a good evening.

I'm excited to go back to church tomorrow. So thankful that I already have that family.

Also, binge watching Criminal Minds continues. Tomorrow I will have to buckle down and work on the reading assignments, but for now, I will enjoy my show.

This is what happened today.

Well, I forced myself to get out of the apartment today.

Despite the fact that all I really wanted to do was stay curled up alternating between watching Criminal Minds and working on Anima videos, Holly and the roommate invited me to dinner, so I went.

We went to McGee's Pub, the inspiration for the bar/pub in How I Met Your Mother, because Holly loves the show. It wasn't as exciting as I expected it to be, but then again I've only seen a handful of episodes.

But yeah, the rest of the day has been Criminal Minds and Anima videos. Pretty much polar opposites in terms of content. Ha!

I hope my body is just storing up energy for next week because this week I feel like I've been hit by a bus.

Today was a simple day.

Mom was at the hospital most of the day with her boyfriend because he's really sick AND he hurt his ankle, so I didn't do much.

I watched an NCIS marathon.

I made tacos (all by myself)!

I filled out all the health paperwork to go in the mail tomorrow.

And I laid around and waited for Mom to get home.

I watched The Bachelorette tonight just because I was bored.

And now I may go to bed.  Just because I can.

And they're off!

Mom and Holly are approximately six hours from New York City right now, just south of Richmond.

I am sitting watching The Big Bang Theory on my computer.  My goal is to get through all the episodes I haven't already seen before Mom gets back Wednesday night.  I have a list, haha.  I'm amazed I could find a website that let me watch all these old episodes for free.  And no commercials or ads!

I'm going to enjoy these four days to myself.

I'm just praying their trip is fruitful and they can find me an apartment under such tight time constraints.  A few extra prayers wouldn't hurt, if you'd be so kind.  Mom is really worried.

Another perk of being home alone?  I can blast music as loud as I want to.  What do you think I'm doing while I write this?  Hahaha.

Blessings to you, lovely reader.