My Everyday Life: November 10-17

Here's what this past week looked like!

A gorgeous sunset on Sunday evening. 

Sunday night studying with Tanzi by my side, which was a pretty typical scene over the last six months of reviewing the material.

Craig playing WiiU tennis while I studied.

I made a yummy spelt risotto from Trader Joe's frozen section.

Celebratory frozen yogurt after I passed my test on Monday! We still need to go out to a restaurant to celebrate.

I started reading The Blue Zones book. It feels so good to read leisure books again!

I purchased these macarons from Trader Joe's and they were so delicious!

I got to the gym a couple of times, which felt great.

I relaxed mid-week by reading the latest Real Simple magazine and painting my nails.

On Sunday night, I didn't sleep well and woke up with a bad neck ache. It went away eventually, but came back on Wednesday. By Thursday and Friday, I was in a great deal of pain. I scheduled a chair massage on Friday morning, but that barely did anything. The massage therapist said that my right side was extremely tight though.

I had to work a late shift on Friday night and so I was icing my neck in my office when it suddenly got very painful and I started tearing up from the severe pain shooting through my neck and down my arm.

A co-worker got a sticky pain reliever pad and put it on my neck, but I still felt awful so I decided to leave work and take myself to an urgent care center. On my way out, I ran into a colleague who insisted on driving me to the urgent care since I wasn't in the best state of mind do to so myself. I was so thankful for her help.

I was pretty uncomfortable before I got some meds. They diagnosed me with a muscle spasm, gave me a pain med and injected me with a muscle relaxer. I haven't been in that much pain in a while! Perhaps the stress of taking the test on Monday and sleeping on my stomach added up to a pinched nerve or muscle spasm.

A restful weekend was in order, so I was thankful that I checked out some movies from the library. Amour was so sad, but an excellent story. While watching it, I found out that a former co-worker from California passed away from a battle with cancer (she was only in her mid-30's) and so the tears started to flow. The timing of watching a story like Amour wasn't the best.

The Great Gatsby was different than we expected, especially in the beginning. I guess I am not a huge fan of Baz Luhrmann's style.

I baked the Trader Joe's chocolate croissants for breakfast today and they hit the spot!

Most of my Sunday was wasted sleeping in bed. The muscle relaxers I am taking sedate me and so I crawled in bed and napped while hail and rain was coming down outside.

We returned some things to the Greenfield library this afternoon and I ran into my college roommate, who's a librarian there. Then it was time for the BOGO holiday drinks. I got a Peppermint Mocha and Craig got a Caramel Brûlée. Both drinks were extremely sweet. I still prefer a simple cappuccino or latte instead.

Kind of a crazy week for me with lots of ups and downs! I hope this one is a little more calm!