Last week we went from this:

To this:

Yay for tile! When we bought our place almost 2 years ago it had an ugly and annoying little rip in the floor in the kitchen that we were told was unrepairable. Last week we had all of the vinyl flooring in our house covered with tile! We did some shopping around at a few places and ended up buying the tile through the same place we bought our carpet. We went with 18″ tiles downstairs and 12″ tiles in the two bathrooms upstairs.

We picked a darker grout than what they put in, but by the time we realized it we decided it wasn’t worth having them take it out and redo it, we didn’t want to deal with that mess! We like the grout they used, just wanted the darker one so it wouldn’t show dirt as much. It still turned out very nice!

We considered doing the install ourselves (well, it was mostly just me that considered it), but Jodi wanted it to get done quickly and right the first time. The guys that put it in did an excellent job and completed the job in 3 days, several weeks faster than it probably would have taken me!

It has been a few days but we had our first snow last week! It snowed for most of the day. It had a hard time accumulating on the pavement, but around the middle of the day I went out and cleaned off my car and there was probably 6-8 inches of snow on it! The pictures below were taken in the morning, so we had a few more inches throughout the day. The snow was mostly all gone the next day but we should be getting some more this week.

We finally finished replacing all of the appliances in the kitchen! At first we replaced the stove, it was so gross we tried cleaning it but decided it wasn’t even worth it. Next was the dishwasher, it was noisy, didn’t clean very well and was also dirty. Soon after the dishwasher we found a sweet deal on a fridge and replaced the old white midget fridge with something that actually keeps food fresh without adding mysterious odors.

The last thing to replace was the microwave above the stove. The one we had worked alright but was dirty and it didn’t match since it was white and everything else was stainless steel. The bottom of the microwave was completed gunked up with grease and we’ve tried to clean it several times but never made much progress. While we were removing it our hands got disgusting! We replaced it with a Frigidaire PLMVZ169GC that we purchased from Best Buy. Now all the appliances are newer, nicer and contain only our dirt! The original ones were all so gross!

The sales person at Best Buy tried to get us to purchase the install service along with it for about $100 but Jodi and I decided we would be adventurous and do it ourselves. He tried to warn me that he installed one once and it took all weekend and 4 people. It ended up being pretty easy for us, the only reason we didn’t get it installed the same day we bought it was because we painted the wall after we took the old one down since the new one didn’t quite go down as low so we had to let that dry overnight.

Old microwave uninstalled	New microwave in packing material still	Microwave hole
Fresh paint, thanks Jodi!	Everything put back together

Jodi’s cousin, Lindsey, got married last week and we were lucky enough to be able to go. She and Aaron were married in the St. George temple. We had a great couple of days in St. George spending time with family and meeting Aaron’s family. We wish the two of them a happy eternity together!

Jodi and I celebrated our two year anniversary yesterday. Who would have thought that she would be able to stand me this long! I have loved being married to Jodi the past two years and look forward to an eternity together. She is the best!

We went to dinner at Ruth’s Chris last night to celebrate which is probably one of the best steak houses on the planet. After dinner we went and saw our friends Aimee and Marc and their new baby, Jackson, at Primary Children’s Hospital. Jackson was born a week ago and has a heart problem so they have had him in intensive care since his birth. We were glad to be able to see them and see that things are progressing well.

This is my new favorite album, I have always liked Coldplay but I really like this one. I have listened to it over and over the past few days. My favorite song is #6 “Yes”. I even purchased it legally, first album I have paid full price for in a long time. I kept thinking I should start getting legit with my music purchases but it was just so cheap to buy stuff from a Russian site that I have used for awhile. Recently they lost their deals or something with credit card companies so adding funds to my account was trickier so I decided to find a new source for tunes. I bought this album through Amazon.com and their system is easy to use, cheaper than a lot of other options, and sells plain old DRM-free MP3s. They also let you buy music with Pepsi Points and we all know I can rack up a few of those!

Jodi and I think this commercial from Hillshire Farm is hilarious!

Jodi and I helped to contribute to the $66.4M record setting amount that The Dark Knight took in on its first day. I really liked the movie and I thought that the acting was very good, especially Heath Ledger’s role of The Joker. This movie is by far the darkest Batman movie ever made; the Joker is no joke in this movie, just downright evil, corrupt, and insane. The special effects were top notch and batman, once again, had some incredible moves and awesome gadgets. They said a lot of the movie was shot in Chicago so there was a lot of hype and excitement here because of that.

Jodi and I arrived in Chicago today. She has to be here for the CHA convention for work and I just came to tag along. We both work a lot when we travel for her conventions but we do get to do some sight-seeing also and this is my first time in Chicago so it will be a new experience for me.

We flew in to O’Hare this morning on American Airlines. The last 20 minutes of our flight was bumpy and the landing was pretty hard but other than that it was a smooth flight. After a meeting that Jodi had to go to we went downtown with Brent and Jen and their 15 month old, Isaac.

We drove to Michigan Avenue and found a place to park the car and walked to the John Hancock Center where we went up to the observatory and looked out over Lake Michigan and the city. They had headsets that we each listened to that described the sights and history of downtown Chicago, narrated by David Schwimmer. We happened to drive by the Weber Grill Restaurant and stopped there for dinner. Jodi and I had seen something about that place on the Food Network so we were excited when we saw it and the wait wasn’t too long. It was good; all of their cooking is done over charcoal. I wouldn’t say that the food was amazing, but it is unique how they cook it so the flavor is a little different than most restaurants. I had a steak and they did a good job of cooking it the way I wanted.

Downtown Chicago traffic was pretty crazy. The roads are narrow and cars just park and drive all over the place. The buses are the worst; they just change lanes and drive between lanes whenever they want. Drivers are also quick to honk their horns if the vehicle in front of them isn’t moving even if that car would have to hit the car in front of them or drive over pedestrians to be able to go forward. Jen made the comment a couple of times that she was glad I drove so she and her husband didn’t have to deal with the traffic. I made the mistake once of trying to change lanes behind a parked bus so I could turn at an intersection and didn’t realize the bus wasn’t going anywhere until it was too late and I was still blocking the lane of traffic I had been in, I got a lot of honks! Whoops!

I started off the week with a bit of a head cold, a sore throat and a runny nose but not too much to worry about. Wednesday morning I woke up and within a couple of minutes my left eye started to hurt. It felt like I had an eyelash or something in there but I had a difficult time finding anything. I got ready for the day and then looked again and found an eyelash at the bottom of my eye, once I pulled that out I assumed everything would be fine and my eye would start feeling better. Things didn’t improve and my eye continued to hurt all morning. I assumed I just had something else in there or that I might have scratched my eye earlier. I looked several times but was never able to find anything. I tried rinsing my eye out with eye drops and with water several times but nothing seemed to help.

I finally decided, with promptings from Jodi, that I would go to the eye doctor and see if they could figure out what was going on. I thought I was being a little ridiculous going to the doctor over an eyelash in my eye but it hurt and I couldn’t find anything to help relieve it. I went to the same place I had my laser eye surgery done over a year ago, Hoopes Vision because I didn’t know where else to go and I have always been impressed with them. I explained my problem to the nurse that took me to the exam room and he thought that I just had a case of pink eye since I had just had a cold. I considered that but didn’t think that was what I had since I didn’t have all of the symptoms.

Before I was told what was going on I had 4 different doctors in and out of my room looking at my eye. Each one that came in wanted another opinion. They put two different dyes in and looked at my eye through a mirrored lens thing under normal and infrared light. I had met the second and fourth doctor before but the other two were new to me. This last doctor finally started telling me what was going on.

He said my problem was potentially a couple of things, he said it could be a virus similar to a cold sore or a bacteria infection. I guess it was a little peculiar shaped to be the virus but I didn’t have some of the symptoms of a bacteria infection. He asked a few times if I had been outside the day before gardening or mowing a lawn or if I have had cold sores in the past, which I hadn’t. He said they could do a culture to find out for sure but they wanted to just start fighting it instead of waiting for the test results.

He ended up prescribing 3 different drugs to help fight it since he wasn’t entirely sure what I had. He prescribed Valtrex (huge blue pill that retails for about $10 per pill) and told me to take 3 a day. He also prescribed Viroptic and told me to take 6 drops a day spread throughout the day. He also mentioned that if I took 9 drops in a day it could be toxic to my cornea! Last he prescribed Ciloxan which is an ointment I was to put in twice a day, once in the morning and once at night. The Valtrex and Trifluridine were for a virus and the Ciloxan was in case it was a bacteria infection and to help protect it from further infection. I ended up having to go to 3 different pharmacies to get my 3 different medications, the first place I went didn’t have the drops or ointment but thankfully they called around and found places close by that I could get each of the other medications. The doctor mentioned that I needed to get these prescriptions filled as soon as possible to help fight this thing because if I didn’t get it taken care of I could possibly lose my vision in that eye. He might have told me that to be sure I would get them and take them as prescribed! He also warned me not to touch my left eye and then my right eye because I might spread it to the other eye.

I went in to the eye doctor expecting them to find another eyelash or something or tell me I had scratched my eye a little while trying to get the eyelash out and ended up leaving with an array of drugs to take and worrying if I was going to lose my vision. That night I did some research on WebMD and learned all sorts of things about cold sores. I didn’t realize that cold sores were a herpes virus along with chicken pox and shingles. I had no idea you could get a cold sore on your eye! Based on my research and the things the doctor had said I figured I had a case of herpes simplex keratitis, which is basically a cold sore on the eye.

Jodi took me to my appointment the next day and the doctor that had performed my laser eye surgery, Dr. Hoopes Jr., was there this time and he looked at my eye. He seemed a lot more positive about my condition than the doctors did the day before and said according to the notes he had that it looked like it had improved already. He told me it was a rather peculiar case but he was pretty sure it was herpes simplex keratitis, which is what I thought from my research. Two of the doctors that looked at my eye the day before came in to see my progress and to look at the oddness I had going on in my eye, they also agreed it looked better.

I am glad that I went in to the eye doctors when I did instead of waiting! They told me if I wouldn’t have gone in that day I probably would have been in the next. Dr. Hoopes told me that people will often wait a few days before they finally go in and then it can take 3 weeks to clear up, I only had to deal with it for about 3 days. It still isn’t quite back to normal but it is a lot better! I went back in today and met with with Dr. Hoopes again and he took me off the eye drops and ointment and told me to just take one Valtrex a day until they are gone. He also gave me a bottle of Flarex, a steroid, to help with the redness, pain, and light sensitivity which are all pretty much gone. Two of the doctors that saw me the first day came in and looked at my eye again to see the progress.

I’m not really sure why I attracted so much attention with all of the doctors over the past few days. I saw 5 different doctors 2 times each in the past week. They said my case was a little peculiar but it may also be because the thing I had just isn’t that common. I have mentioned my condition to a few people and nobody that I have talked to has ever heard that it was possible to get a cold sore on an eye. When I broke my leg a few years ago all of the orthopedic surgeons enjoyed checking out my x-rays because I had managed to do quite a number on it. I don’t usually have too much wrong with me but when I do I do it in style!

Below are some pictures that Jodi took on Wednesday evening. My eye got swollen and bloodshot but I could never see any sign of a cold sore like you can see when they are on your skin. I also didn’t notice anything in my vision although it did get a little worse for a few days. I think I normally see about 20/15 in my left eye but I was seeing 20/25 last week. I was tested again today and I am back to seeing 20/15 with both eyes and 20/20 with my left eye. Hopefully when I go back in 2 weeks I’ll be back to 20/15 in my left eye again. The pupil is huge because the doctor put some drops in to dilate my eye, they said it was to relax the iris muscles to help with the pain. According to WebMD they also do that to help keep the eye’s natural fluids flowing. It stayed dilated for a couple of days which made me look pretty weird.

Dr. Hoopes warned me that I could be susceptible to getting this again in the future. He said a bloodshot eye and a feeling like something is in my eye are the first signs and it can often go along with a cold or flu so I’ll need to pay attention to my eyes when I get sick in the future. I can’t imagine dealing with this for more than a few days so I will try and make sure I get in ASAP if I think I have it again!