Utah Musings

Tanner and I have been married for around 5 months now. Which means I've lived here in Utah for around 5 months. Tanner has lived here for a little over a year, so he's a bit more adjusted to it than I am. Living here has definitely been the biggest adjustment for me. This place really boggles my mind sometimes.

For instance, everything closes so dang early here! I know, my life is so hard. But I guess I didn't realize the pains of living somewhere where the average closing time is 10:00. In Vegas everything is open 24/7. And things that aren't are usually not even worth going to. Last night Tanner and I were trying to figure out what to do for a date night, and everything we came up with had already closed or would be closing fairly soon. We ended up ice skating then bailing after about 20 minutes of skating itself. (We were there for an hour total, 40 minutes of which we sat on the side.)

Which brings me to my next point. If you ever want to do anything as a couple, you better go on a week night. If you step foot outside your house on a Friday or Saturday, basically anywhere you go is going to be just packed. I hate crowds. I get claustrophobic and anxious. Tanner gets worked up at annoying, rude people. We're definitely not the most patient of couples. At the ice skating place last night we both ended up leaving pretty frazzled, because there was a particularly obnoxious group of teenage (possibly freshman college) guys. And it was super crowded. I hate that anywhere you go is always super busy, because lets face it, there aren't a lot of options here.

The first day of snow was cute. I woke up, looked outside, and saw this beautiful, fluffy white stuff on the ground. Totally not used to it. I didn't end up going out that day because I wasn't feeling well, but the next day when I left for work, the snow had doubled. The stairs to our apartment were frozen, and I ended up being 10 minutes late to work because I hadn't accounted for how long it would take me to scrape all the ice off my car. I got to work late, freezing, and with my clothes just soaked. As it got worse, the beautiful, fluffy white stuff turned into disgusting black mountains in parking lots, grey slush on the roads, and to be honest, a huge disruption in my driving capabilities.

I do miss my family a ton. I've always gotten homesick easily. I don't have major panic attacks about missing my mom or my siblings like I used to even at sleepovers or weekends at my grandparents house, but I do find myself sad sometimes that I'm missing out on day-to-day fun stuff my family does. Especially when it includes my nieces and nephews. I've been around Sam his whole entire life. This last November, I missed his 5th birthday, the first one I'd ever missed. When I was in school in Idaho, I made a special surprise trip down for his 3rd birthday because I couldn't miss it. So when I could not make the trip down this time, it broke my heart! When Sam was around 2 we developed a very close relationship and even though I know it won't always be that way, not seeing him grow up quite as closely as I used to is really sad sometimes! Plus, being around my 2 nieces and 3 nephews is just plain fun, especially hearing the random little things they say. "I'm petting this dog. All dogs and puppies like that."

But Utah isn't all so bad. And this post isn't titled "Caitlin whines about where she lives" for a a reason. The other night Tanner asked if I wanted to build a snowman. So we did! I've never made a decent sized snowman like the one we built, because I've always gotten too cold or too impatient. We used rolos for the eyes, a tiny baby carrot for the nose, and hershey's kisses for the mouth. It was actually a little scary at the end of it because the face just turned out looking like a skull. But, it's still standing, and it was a lot of fun to build! But yes, I'm looking forward to seeing some sun again.

Utah is beautiful. When I first got here in August/September, I could have died at how pretty everything was, and especially at all the beautiful weather. I could walk outside to my car without breaking a sweat. I could leave the apartment door open to feel a nice breeze coming in. Nothing, and I mean nothing, like Vegas. I'll admit, I've gotten used to the Vegas heat over the last 20 years of living in it, but I know that whenever we visit this summer, I'll probably be thinking a whole lot differently. So, when the weather here isn't freezing my hair when I make the mistake of getting the mail after taking a shower, it is definitely much better than Vegas.

Around this time a year ago, Tanner and I were dating long distance. And it seriously sucked. I'd rather be anywhere with him than in Vegas without him. Even though the 6 hour drive seems like forever away, I'm grateful we can be somewhere where Tanner can get his schooling done, that really isn't too far from Vegas, where I have some friends, and most importantly where we can just be together.

The Story Of How My Eye Got Chemically Burned

As I mentioned in my previous post, Tanner and I left Disneyland early so I could go get treatment for my eye. This trip to Vegas was filled with some unfortunate events, especially at the beginning. The day before Disneyland I had to put my dog, Winky, to sleep. She was super sick and had lived a good, long life. But it was time to let her go so we did. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done! The next day, my eye flared up, and then the next day...well, it's kind of a long story.

So my sister Amanda is really into doTerra essential oils. I swear, she's cured me of multiple ailments on various occasions. She combines these oils to treat anything from back pain to the flu. This stuff is pretty incredible, really. So when I let her know my eye was acting up, she asked if I wanted her to bring some oils over to put around (not in) my eye to help with the redness/itchiness. I agreed, because it has always helped.

So the morning after Disneyland, she brought the oils over. She let me know beforehand what she would be doing. She was going to take a q-tip and apply Oregano, Lavender, and I think a blend called On Guard. She warned me before we started that Oregano is what they call a "hot" oil. It's not like you heat it up or anything, but it's naturally hot. So when you apply it to skin, you're supposed to dilute it. That's how strong it is. She also let me know that it's not really supposed to go in your eye, but if it did get in there, it would burn, but not actually harm my eye. Honestly I'm not sure if anything she could have told me would have prepared me for the hot (literally) mess that was about to take place. 

She took the q-tip, and started with the Oregano. Immediate burning sensation. 

*I'm quite sure profanities were coming from my mouth at this point, but I really can't remember much on my part but pain and yelling*
Amanda: "I'm supposed to rub olive oil on it after to help dilute it."
Me: "So where is the freaking olive oil?!"

Amanda: "Hannah! Go grab it! Quick!"

Half a second passes.
Me: "WHERE IS THE OLIVE OIL?!?!?!"

Olive oil is applied.

Me: "Oh my gosh it literally feels like my skin is burning off. Is my skin okay?!"

Andee: (jokingly) "Oh no! We can see your skull!"

I laugh. Amanda pokes the q-tip with the oregano straight into my tear duct as I jerk forward laughing. Laughter stops. Tears and screaming ensue.

I literally have not felt that kind of pain before. It wasn't the worst I've ever felt, but definitely #2 and very, very prominent in my memory. My eye filled with oregano tears, which flowed onto my cheeks, only enhancing the pain. I sat there breathing like I was giving birth for another couple minutes while she rubbed more olive oil on. It finally started to calm down. The crying stopped, and my family who had all gathered in the kitchen to see what all the screaming was about got ready to go to the museum.

As the day went on, we noticed that my under eye was still quite swollen, and a little discolored. From then it just got worse. I think the worst it got was day 2 afterwards. It wasn't swollen anymore, just extremely dark and scaly. We figured out that I had actually suffered a chemical burn. It was so bad that day that when Tanner and I went to Subway, he literally got the stare-down by every person in there. It straight up looked like he had punched me. It was so funny and so terrible all at once. The nurse at my eye doctor thought I was insane when I told her the story. She was like, "You  know that eye is sensitive...why would you do that?" Again, totally embarrassing.

My eye is completely healed now, which is obviously good. But I really couldn't go without having this story recorded somewhere. Sorry, Amanda!