More new students, etc.

Well, life has been very busy. We have been on the phones with the insurance companies and such a lot, which takes up more of your time than you would think! We still have "baby head" as Madison calls it, where when you wake up in the morning, you need to lift your head with your hands because it hurts to lift it on its own, and we get sore if we are sitting in one place too long. The hardest thing for me is not being able to sleep at night. I have never ever had a problem sleeping before, but because of the pain & awkwardness of trying to find a good sleeping position when you are usually used to plopping on your stomach and passing out within minutes (if not seconds), it's kinda frustrating! But hey, I'm just thankful we are okay and were protected in that accident.

Thankfully, I have a few breaks in my lessons. I didn't teach the first of the week, but I'm back to teaching now. I started 3 boys and a girl in the last 2 weeks, and start a woman next week (she's 30-ish). Another man knocked on the door at the beginning of a lesson and is from the church I teach at. They have 5 boys, and one of them is interested in taking violin lessons. The students are trickling in at a faster rate. It's very encouraging and exciting. At first it was really stressful, because I started out with just 2. I honestly don't even know how many I have now! I would have to count in my planner! I teach Regents today. I hope they aren't too terribly hyper, but I'm definitely going to take some aleve before I go.

Madison is back full swing in school. Most evenings he's able to stop work at a decent hour, but there have already been a few late nights. That's just how it goes. It's hard to get used to at first! We are figuring out our schedules and have finally figured out who drops off who and when. Right now we have a rental car, then this weekend we are going to drive up somewhere halfway or something and borrow a car from my dad (he still has 2). He originally wanted us to drive all the way up to Normal on Monday and drive back Tuesday, but Madison & I have school & work that we need to do, and that is an awful long way (8.5 hours one way) so I think we've talked him down to St. Louis, which is still going to be rough. Riding in the car really hurts. :-( He originally said he would drive it down and fly out of Memphis or something, but he is busy with Toni & her girls this weekend. Ouch.

But, we will be fine, and it's a car to drive, so if we have to drive an 11 hour round trip to get a car to borrow until this all blows over and we figure something out, we will I guess. No other options are given to us, so that's what we are going to have to do, which is okay.

I am determined to have a better attitude on life and take things in stride. I have been disappointed by different people that haven't lived up to my expectations, and I feel like part of that is my fault for giving them any expectations to start off with. Maybe if I expect nothing, things will be little nice pleasant surprises or something instead of disappointments. I have a tendency to feel bitter towards people which is not a good thing and I am working on it! Sometimes it's hard but hey, everyone struggles with at least something, right?

I have been lazy with cooking because of our accident, so no recipes today. We ate take out & fast food and such this week (thanks to help by Madison's parents!) and then a very sweet mom of one of my students brought us not only an amazing dinner, but 3 frozen casserole meals as well, and a breakfast blueberry pecan cake roll! We have been all set this week and feel so blessed by the wonderful people who are so kind and generous.

When you feel like you've almost had a second chance at life, your prospective changes a little. All the little things that bugged me about myself (and big things) seem to be more important to work on. And all the people I have neglected via phone and such are also more important to get ahold of. I remember that second when I had bubblegum limeade all over me (read the accident post) let's just say that scared the living daylights out of me. It was dark, so I didn't know what it was. After my bloody murder scream, I realized I could still move and heard Madison whispering "it's okay it's okay it's okay" and I started sobbing because I couldn't believe both of us were okay...that is still so traumatic for me to think about and makes me shudder. On that wonderful note (hah) I am going to go get some work done.

Update

Hello everyone, just a little update. We're both in excruciating pain still - you have to get creative when trying to stay clean and such when you've been in a car accident and you can't bend your neck or back much at all! The weight of a towel on my head hurt way too much to keep it there for long. As long as we take our meds, we feel relatively great. Coming from me, you know I have to be benefiting from meds when I will say the side effects of having dry mouth & being drowsy are worth it. I absolutely hate taking medicine, especially ones that make you drowsy. It's one of those things that you wake up crying in pain and take your meds really quick and within a half hour, you feel relatively normal except for the woosyness. I woke up this morning and forgot what happened for a second. I felt like I had been dropped on my head & beat up or something! It quickly came back to me that we were in an accident. I'm surprised neither of us have said too many crazy things being on vicadin and all. All I said one night is, "I hear puppies barking in my ears!" It isn't very strong though, because both of us are able to function pretty normally (other than the fact that we can't operate a car or anything).
We were laughing at the hospital when both of us were wheeled in wheelchairs and left in the hall waiting for our x rays...Madison joked about how this would be us in 60 years...haha oh dear.
I keep on thinking "oh, I'm fine, I don't need the medicine..." then it wears off and I get really cranky because of the pain. I take after my mom about not taking medicine unless it is absolutely necessary. But believe me, it is necessary. I keep on thinking the accident wasn't "that bad", until I remember how I was suspended by my seatbelt and slammed back into my seat. My door was bent and they had trouble getting it open. Poor Madison was suspended by his seatbelt, and when he came back into his seat, his seat broke and was flat down, so he was lying down when the car stopped. Our sunroof slider thing went through the top of the car, and our stuff like I said flew everywhere.
Funny story for you: Sonic has these really yummy cherry limeade drinks that we LOVE. when we were leaving, it was "happy hour". 2 for 1. So we decided for the road, we would get a cherry limeade like we normally do when travelling. I took a sip and said "this tastes like bubblegum...YUCK!" and Madison tasted his and his tasted like it too. They accidently squirted the wrong flavoring in our drinks. When we got in our accident, we felt sticky pink stuff on us, and realized that our bubblegum drinks got all over us. So not only were we in an accident, but we had sticky pink drinks all over us!!!

We would appreciate your prayers, as we are still fairly traumatized from the accident and in pain. One of us needs to go off our meds tomorrow to try to drive home, but we are going to see how that goes. This was our only car, so we are trying to figure out the logistics of renting a car and then getting either a new (used) car, or borrowing another from my dad. He gave us that car when we got married, it was the car I used in high school. It will all work out. God is good.

Ouch

We woke up in pain, but honestly, not as bad as I expected. I definitely need to take my muscle relaxers, but we are doing okay this morning. :) Later, we are going to try to get some pictures of the car in daylight for insurance purposes, but I will also post some on here.

I'm just thankful we're alive.

Our accident

I will write more details later, I am in a recliner in excruciating pain, but wanted to let everyone know that Madison & I are at the Taylors being pampered after a very scary accident. Our necks are bent the wrong way (I don't understand completely) but it's definitely not close to the worst we could have had. I am so thankful for God's protection. We were on the highway on I-55 South. The person in front of us stopped really fast, so Madison put on the brakes to avoid rear ending them. The girl behind us was most likely texting or something, because we were almost stopped, and she plowed into us going 65 or so. Everything in our car flew everywhere, and Madison's seat is completely flattened. We actually did not rear end the person in front of us, praise the Lord. Our car is most likely totaled - if not very very close. We spent a while in the hospital and we were released some pain killers and muscle relaxers.
Here's a picture of the back of the car from my phone.
Ok, just popped a vicadin so I'm going to do y'all a favor by signing off and trying to go to bed. Praise the Lord that we were protected and had a tank of a car to protect us.

4 years together

It's hard to believe that 4 years ago, Madison and I went on our first official date in freezing 3 degree weather to downtown Chicago! :) We rode the train into Chicago and he took me to the Shedd Aquarium. After we were crazies and tried to find Navy Pier on foot with no luck in the extremely cold weather, we stopped into Bennigans near Ogalvie for dinner. We rode the train back to campus and I think I shivered for the next hour or so! It's a wonder neither of us got sick, as far as I can remember. We spent that Christmas break talking to each other every day on AIM, then we started hanging out a lot as soon as we got back to school. :-) And the rest is history!

The beginning of a new semester

Well, it has all started! I cannot believe it's already almost the end of the week now! This week has really flown by. Last weekend, Tully & Margaret came up and we had a wonderful time with them. We absolutely love having visitors, and we had so much fun spending lots of quality time with them before our crazy week began. One morning, I made my dad's recipe for Blueberry Muffins. Although the topping was a little too sweet because I forgot to add the cinnamon, they were really good if I may say so. You can find the recipe at the end of today's post.

Madison's classes are going well. He really enjoys law school. It's definitely his niche. I'm so proud of him for completing a successful semester, and I think we both felt like our break was a sufficient amount of time and rest before we headed back at the beginning of the week.

I started 3 new students this week, and 1 next week! Well, I start one at 4pm today which makes for the 3rd. I have an adorable 3 year old student named Charlie Mac who is very well behaved. He is going to be such a fun little student to have. He's very excited to play the "bio-win". Then, there's Broch who is a 21 year old viola student. Then I start Meagan, age 14 at 4pm today. Now my students range in ages from 3-61! I start a new student in her early 30's next week. She's a mom, and has been playing piano for 22 years. She has always wanted to play the violin, so she found me and decided to pick it up.

Tomorrow I start the new semester with the Regents Chamber Orchestra. I'm looking forward to some rep with them that I have found, I think they will enjoy it. I had to order a new baton, my old one was snapped in one of the boxes from moving. It is so much fun to work with those kids. They have so much energy and love playing in the orchestra, which is exciting. We're going to play for the Veterans' home later this semester. Apparently it's a pretty large one.

Well, I'm going to take a power nap before I teach my last 3 lessons of the day. I had 2 this morning, then 3 later on, then I prepare my music for tomorrow at Regents. Not too bad of a day :-)

Here's the muffin recipe:

Steve's Blueberry Muffins
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
¾ cup white sugar
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 TBS of finely grated lemon peel
1 egg
1 cup fresh blueberries

Crumble:
½ cup white sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup butter, cubed
1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease muffin tins with Crisco or line with muffin liners. Combine 1 ½ cups flour, ¾ cup sugar, salt, lemon peel, and baking powder. Place vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with flour mixture. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture. Mix the crumble ingredients with a fork before sprinkling on top of muffin mixture. Bake for 20-25 mins. Yield: 12 muffins

We're back home

After finishing exams & work on the 18th, packing up that Saturday and heading down to Brookhaven (4 hr drive), we spent Christmas there. As I wrote a little bit below, we had a wonderful first Christmas together. It was really fun to spend Christmas with Madison's family, and see the different traditions and such. We had a great time there. And I got a sewing machine!!! I am so excited to use it...last night when we came home, I immediately went to the office and looked at it again. :-) I'm pumped to use it, and it will be nice to have stuff to do while Madison is busy with his classes. I will definitley blog about my projects. I have a feeling I won't see Madison nearly as much this semester...his classes are obviously going to be harder, and with some of the profs he has, I feel like it's going to be a lot more time consuming than it already was this semester. So, I will sew, and I will do fun projects, as well as getting back into composing music which I love to do for fun. I also plan to learn something difficult on violin, and work on my Chopin piece I'm learning on piano.

After driving to Preston, MS to see Madison's grandparents on the 26th-27th, we made the trek back to Oxford and arrived that evening. We did laundry and packed back up for Illinois. We got up somewhat early on the 28th, and drove to Normal, IL. (8.5 hours). After hanging out with dad and doing our Christmas with him, we went to Wheaton on the 30th. It was a really busy time and we didn't get to see everyone we wanted to see, but it was really fun. Just not long enough! We wanted to go to IKEA & Aurora outlet malls and such, but our time was limited. We had a great New Years Eve with friends, and had a blast. It flew by way too fast! We went back to Dad's the night of the 1st, watched the Cotton Bowl on the 2nd and hung around Normal, then on the 3rd, we headed back home. And here we are!

We are figuring out our schedules and I am coming up with a master copy of both of our schedules so we both can keep track of each other. We have been rocking out to our Rock Band 2 and having fun playing mario party and such. Madison is reading a Law & Bioethics book for fun, and I'm working on menu planning & finding new recipes. Madison's grandma gave me 2 huge binders of all her favorite recipes, so I have been flipping through the one Bekah made of all my family recipes, and that one, and making lists. It's more fun than it sounds!

We both start back on the 12th, so it's nice to have a completely chill week. We are taking walks every day and trying to get back into being healthy & being in shape. We're having fun spending time at home after a very crazy but fun couple of weeks. We're exhausted!