Who knows where the time goes?

Time is flying by, and it's quite disturbing.
Right now my schedule is such that I only go to school two days a week (two excruciatingly long days) and I work three days a week (longer days, rather than short nights like I did during the summer.) These two things combined make my weeks FLY by. Really.
Like, today. Today I work at two, and I'll be there until nine. That's a substantial portion of my day. I force myself to get up early so I feel like I have more time at home. And yet, I always think it's not quite enough time to get much done. Then I go off to work, and boom. The day is over. Tomorrow, Tuesday, I will get up early and go to school. I will be there from about 830 in the morning, and I will get out of class at 830 at night. It takes me about half an hour to get to my car and get home. And boom. Tuesday is over. Lather, rinse, and repeat for Wednesday and Thursday, and before you know it, I finally have some free time and it's Friday! But I really have stuff I need to do. Then comes Saturday, when I'm back at work, from 9 to 5, and come home tired because it's the end of the week and I don't want to do anything because in my mind, there's not that much time before bed (even though it's like, five or six hours) and thus, I don't get much accomplished. And the next day is Sunday. And we start this whole process over again. It's scary how fast the last five weeks have gone by. I have lots of homework- one of the disadvantages of going to a liberal arts school is that while I don't have many quizzes and exams, I do have LOTS of papers to write. Just for fun, let's list them:
*1 paper left in IDC, plus a 3-page paper for any classes I miss, and I must prepare three articles per class meeting on the topic we will be discussing.
* At least 5 film reviews for my project in Christian Marriage
*A long, thorough paper for Liberalism and Conservatism, as for our class project (semester-long) we are writing a book. Really. A collection of essays. Good, long essays. And I have deadlines throughout the semester so I can't leave it for last minute.
*Two essays that are part book review, part...essay for Roaring Twenties/Great Depression (affectionately known as "Roaring Depression")
*Two collections of notes on two more books for same class, to prove that they have been read
*A biographical video project for same class, about a person from that time period.

Plus midterms and finals, etc. In some ways I'd rather have more quizzes and tests, because I am a procrastinator by nature and put off writing those papers until the last few days before they are due. On the other hand, I seldom study, and my grades would probably be worse.

Anyway, the point is, time is flying by, and my wedding is three months and change away now (insane!) and I've got stuff to take care of for that, plus school, plus we need to get an apartment and move stuff into it, plus making sure we are able to pay for things...ugh. It would be nice if I had more time, really.

Hurray for not being dead.

Hello, world.
So I had pretty much the scariest weekend of my life.
Saturday night, after Kelli had gone home, I was getting ready for bed and started to feel weird. Like, I had some pressure around my tummy, and throughout my ribs. I tried all sorts of positions to get comfortable, kind of thinking I just had an air bubble trapped in there, but it wouldn't work. I accidentally dozed off for half an hour (with my arms in funny positions and an irritated doggie half on my pillow, half on my head- I guess that's the only place he felt safe from my flailing) and woke up at around 1130 in tremendous pain. I decided to move to the living room to try to sleep in the chair, and the pain was getting exponentially worse by the second. Seriously. I called mom on her cell phone and said something was wrong, and within what felt like minutes, I was in the bathroom kneeling on the floor, my ribcage feeling like it was splitting apart, heart pounding, etc. It was not a panic attack- that is a beast I know all too well. I had trouble breathing- I had to pour like, all my concentration into forcing myself to inhale. Exhaling was fine, but inhaling took tremendous effort. I honestly thought I was dying. Not breathing well was making my vision go a little funny at moments, was making it hard to concentrate on what I was saying, and was just scary. I was able to take one of my anxiety pills (for emergencies only) because really, it couldn't harm anything at this point. It could really only help me remain calm during this scary time, and I was starting to feel like I was losing control. As a person who has a permanently broken rib (from my spinal surgery), I always expect some discomfort when I've been coughing a lot- and I have been over the past two weeks or so (I've had a cold). But this was way higher than that broken rib I have, and wrapped all around my chest, my back, and under my arms, and it was excruciating. Unlike anything I have ever experienced. I honestly thought I was getting ready to or already experiencing a heart attack or something like it. I thought I was going to die. After a little while it subsided for a few minutes (after we'd already decided I needed to go to the hospital) and then started up again. So we headed off to the emergency room, my heart beating super fast, and me still scared, but not in quite as much pain as before. We waited for what felt like a long time, and got called back. I had a heart monitor and everything, and then got left alone for a while. Then the nurse came back and tested me for H1N1, just in case, and left again, and then I had a chest x-ray, and another break, and then an EKG just in case. Mom thought it was more likely that I had pneumonia than a heart condition, which is a good thing, but then again, I've had pneumonia before and it has never hurt like that, or as suddenly as that. The heart monitor showed that my heart was beating a little fast (I had calmed down more at this point) but my blood oxygen levels were good, and I hadn't had a cardiac episode. The ER doctor said I probably have pleurisy, which I thought people had in the 1800's, but I must be confusing that with something else. Anyway, we got home a little before 5 a.m. Sunday morning, and I slept most of the day. I still get kind of scared sometimes, because like I said, that was the scariest thing I have ever experienced. I appreciate knowing that if my heart really was going to, I don't know, give out, there probably would have been a sign of it in those tests they ran. But after that terrifying nightmare, even the little heaviness I have in my chest right now makes me a little upset. I don't want anything bad to happen in the middle of the night. It was scary thinking I might die and knowing that Brandon's phone was turned off, and I couldn't talk to him (not that I could really talk to him anyway, but once I'd gotten to feeling a little better it would have been nice to know that he was aware of what was going on.
Anyway, that was my weekend. My chest hurts a little right now but I'll be ok. I'm tired of coughing and just want to feel better, really. Feeling bad makes me sad. Thinking about what happened this weekend makes me sad. So maybe I will stop talking about it now. I will save my stories of wedding planning for another time.

Just call me the bluebird of happiness.

It's a long weekend! And...it's been weird. Friday I was planning on spending the day with Brandon, since I hadn't seen him all week, and found out that I had to work that morning. But of course by the time Brandon was up, I was already at work and couldn't talk to him. I spent the majority of the workday very upset. Saturday I had the day off, but everyone else was feeling bad so I couldn't do anything fun. And Jonathan's friend Giselle came over, so that was pretty cool. Then today... I am coughing again (did I mention I've been sick?) and Brandon says in some ways he is feeling worse. Or different, I guess. We went to our class at church and our partner couple wasn't there. Then we went out to lunch (Taco Bell, woohoo) and it took FOREVER. They apparently forgot they were in the middle of making our order. It was annoying. And then we went to Feeder's Supply and looked at the animals, and then went to Target and worked on our wedding registry. That was sort of fun, except almost everything we scanned said "limited availability", I don't know what that means...then we went back to Brandon's house and watched a movie and then he brought me home. And when I got here, I had forgotten my keys so I hung out on the porch waiting for someone to answer the door, and when they did, Diego was trying to get out the door. I would normally put my leg up against the door frame to block him but there was a spider there that looked a heck of a lot like a black widow, so I decided not to risk getting bitten and dying, and tried to step briskly into the house. Except I was carrying a lot of stuff and my shoes are a little too big and I got my foot caught on the storm door, and it sort of got hooked for a millesecond until I could drag it out. Which hurt like crazy. So now I have this bloody stump of a foot.
And I had been looking forward to coming home all day and eating one of the last mini Oreo cheesecakes I made a few days ago. So I ate dinner, went to the fridge, and pulled out the Tupperware container they were in- and it was empty. There were three left this morning. And what kind of weirdo takes all the food and puts the empty container back in the refrigerator? I have my suspicions about who the cuprit is.
So I'm ready for today to be over. Tomorrow could go either way. Brandon works tomorrow night, but I'm supposed to go see him for a little while in the morning. But that means I have less time at home. And I have some homework to do. It's nice not to have to work tomorrow, but my hours will be weird the rest of the week because I have to make up three hours (I only get four hours holiday time for tomorrow) so I have to work on Friday, in the middle of the day for three hours, just at the right time to make me miss meeting Jonathan for lunch. Ugh. I'm tired of talking about how lame this week is. I'm going to finish this brownie sundae I made myself and watch the Golden Girls in peace. Maybe.