life is crazy

so. very strange turn of events these last few days.

*sigh*

the bad news first? my uncle dave's wife died on monday night of necrotizing fascitis.

insane. a flesh-eating disease.

she hurt her thumb on thursday, didn't even break skin. by sunday, her arm had swollen so badly her skin was ripping.
she was rushed to surgery where they amputated her arm up to the shoulder blade, her leg and removed muscle from her side - to no avail. the infection was too strong and too fast.

i can't believe there are things out there that can spread and destroy tissue so fast! i'm completely at a loss. my mom was saying that a woman in tampa had a similar experience - she went in to give birth to her child and woke up with all her limbs amputated. boxing helena. how horrific.

... hm, in other news, the weekend went well. lots of gfss fun & drinking. hm, hard to be chipper. i'll just let pictures speak for themselves:


here's my knitting project


a larger view - i've moved on to my second ball! that's the first ball in the picture. it's a little bit wobbly on the edges, but supposedly blocking will make it look better. it's going to be a scarf!


i love erika's house. it's huge - check out the size of that kitchen! this is where we spent most of the weekend - cooking & making margaritas.


we also did super girly sleepover stuff like plucking each other's eyebrows and putting on masques.


meaghan and erika - during our game of celebrity*.


she's not picking her nose, folks.


virginia's wearing an "i heart nerds" shirt!


rachel also has a heart. she is totally in love... awwwwww..... : )


erika's students also love her. they write her poems and gift her like crazy. one boy made her this record clock - he's so infatuated. (p.s. loverboy is rachel's favorite 80s group)


meaghan & her husband craig came by our house before & after the weekend (we carpooled to ft. myers) and they brought their little dog junie! i don't know if you can tell in the picture, but thomas is about 3 times the size of junie. junie looks the same size as thomas because she's closer to the camera. junie wanted to be friends, but thomas was a little territorial.


thomas works out to maintain his top physical shape. i mean, you saw his physique in the above photo. he's totally a biff (like in back to the future!).




*celebrity is a game in which everyone writes down 10 famous people (can be fictional) on slips of paper. in the first round, one person gets their group to guess the person by saying anything they want to describe the person. one minute to get as many famous people as they can. second round - same thing, but the group has to guess it in 2 words. third round is charades! meaghan got us to guess "old macdonald (has a farm)" by pretending to have sex with a goat. she's so talented.