and the story continues...

can you tell i have no life since this black eye has become such a point of interest? anyways…thus far, everyone that i have come across has had some rather impressive responses to seeing my eye, and most, if not all, have been grossed out by the sight of it (including my brothers who make sure that I know it’s disgusting looking…brendon feels sorry for me, ethan tries to get me upset, so i laugh in his face about it). as the days progress, the deep purple color is spreading and it is now all the way around my eye and tinged with the lovely bruise yellow color, and part of my eye is a bit bloodshot for some reason…so the beauty is increasing. unfortunately, pictures do it no justice, though i have been keeping the ‘progress’ well documented for those that are curious. but going back, yesterday i had a meeting to work on stuff for state fair, and i didn’t wear any make up at all. we were meeting at shelly’s grandparents. when i walked in, her gramma took one glance at me, and with her eyes wide, she squeaked…what happened to you! i laughed, told her, and continued on my way. when i rounded the corner, shelly and linda both looked up and were somewhat speechless. they pretty much both cringed, managed a ‘wow’ and kinda left it at that for the time being. then we went outside and mandy showed up. she didn’t seem to notice for a moment, and then she suddenly looked up like a light had dawned and said, “wow mel…that is hott!’ so i got in another chuckle. then later, when we were inside again, shelly was telling me that one of the mom’s had asked what happened to me. shelly had told her and the lady asked if i was sure there’s nothing else wrong or if i any broken bones or anything. so that got shelly to thinking and she made me close my eye and took a good long look at it. when she finally released me, she looked at me rather seriously and said, ‘melanie, are you completely sure that you’re ok? Are you sure you didn’t break any bone, and is it really supposed to be that dark? are you sure you didn’t do any permanent damage?’ so…from the reactions that i’m getting, i’m quite convinced that i’ve managed to secure one of the worst black eyes that many people have seen in quite some time. i was telling my mom all this, since i still find it all rather humorous and she said, ‘well, when people get into car accidents and hit their head on the steering wheel it generally looks like your eye, so yes, you have the extreme end of black eyes.‘ this has all been rather amusing for me, but i’m now starting to wonder how long it’s going to take to go away, since its wednesday and every morning when i wake up it just looks worse than the night before. i have a strong feeling i’m going to be dealing with this for a while though, but i can handle it. and if i care enough (which i mostly don’t), i can, for the most part, get it pretty well covered in a multitude of layers of make up, so that pretty much solves all of my problems. ok, that’s it for now…until next time…bubye.

a different shade of black...

as i've been watching my black eye change and develop and turn my skin colors i never thought possible, i've started to wonder why black eyes are called black. the fact of the matter is that they really aren't black...plain and simple. mine is most certainly not black. it's a rather astonishing shade of deep purple, mixed with magenta, and lighter purple and all sorts of colors that skin should just not be able to turn. i'm quite sure that it would be impossible to replicate this color...and i have found it quite facinating to watch this deep purplishness overtake my entire right eye. the difference from morning, to noon, to night today was indeed notable. i had a dinner to go to this evening, and i decided to take pictures of my eye before i tried to cover it up with massive amounts of makeup. so, i showed the girls the pictures of what my eye really looked like (since my cover up job was quite amazing) and they were for the most part disgusted by it, which i found rather funny. one would think i might be upset about this, or annoyed and avoiding public, but i'm really finding this whole thing highly amusing. tomorrow i plan to show up at my meeting and clean up thing for state fair without any makeup to show the true color of my eye, and potentially gross a few people out by it, since it is really something to be seen. pictures just do it no justice at all. as shelly stated tonite, when i go out to do something i just have to go all the way, there is no in between. so my first black eye just had to be the black eye of all black eyes! ok, well that's all for now...i'll probably keeping writing random things as this thing progresses around my eye as i'm seemingly odd and finding this whole thing interesting...but i'm done for now...bubye.

battle wounds and tree branches...what a week

well it's been over a week since i've posted anything, and i actually have some things of moderate interest to write about...so here goes. first off, let me say that this past week was insane. i might as start off towards the beginning, i don't recall what happened monday, so we'll start with tuesday night when i couldn't sleep. yes, couldn't sleep as in i was awake from 2:45-6am...talk about a long night. but some excitment stirred the dullness of the night when at 4:30 i heard this weird cracking outside, and looked out my window and watched in horror as this huge branch of one of the trees just randomly broke and fell onto our truck. since i was wide awake anyways, i just got up and told my dad and went out to take a look. we got lucky on that one cause it missed the cab, but the back of the truck was well buried, and half of our driveway was covered with limbs and leaves and treeish stuff. the next morning, when we were trying to unearth the truck, we found this branch to be a good 15 inches in diameter. but the truck only sustained very minor dents...woohoo. ok, onto wednesday. i was working on very little sleep, but i went to a beach boys concert in the evening to meet up with a friend of mine from college. that was enjoyable. thursday i had to clean up some equipment for state fair, got into a water fight with shelly, and then go to another meeting to talk about my trip to europe. friday i worked all day helping my dad, mowing my gramma's lawn, doing laundry, making food for my family since mom was gone...that type of stuff. oh and we watch the transporter; pretty good movie in my opinion. that brings me to saturday, which i spent all day in milwaukee working at a welcome home thing for war vetrans that my church was sponsoring, and then heidi went to a movie. man, that girl and i have fun together! ok, so we've now arrive at today, sunday and my most recent entertaining moment. so this morning i was going to be going with shelly and linda to give a dairy judging demo to some kids who wanted to learn how to do it. simple right? i was going to have to skip church due to the time i needed for travel, so this morning i just had to get up, get dressed, do chores, eat, grab my stuff and leave. so i got up, got dressed, did chores and took a look at the wound that i've been doctoring on my horse for a while now. well i was running out of time, so i figured i could clean it and put the antibiotic stuff on his leg while he was still in his pasture, cause i didn't want to take the time to get him out. that was my first mistake. he didn't like that idea and wasn't cooperating well. so i had my hand on his nose and was crouched down to put the antibiotic on his leg and he sqealed at me and went to jump back...bringing his knee full force into a collision with my eye, or the bone right above my eye to be exact. had i not had myself supported by my hand on his nose i would have been on my back in the mud. but i didn't fall, and i jumped up, rather shocked, hopped over the fence and headed right to the house, imagining that i was going to have a huge cut over my eye. well, the skin didn't split, but i have a tremendous black eye now. it's pretty much a violent shade of redish purple, and swollen enough that i can't open it more than halfway. it's quite lovely...let me tell you. and it hurts now too. but i have to say that i still find it rather amusing and can now claim that i have sustained a black eye...by way of a horse. so that's about it...i'm now at my grandparents, enjoying the lake on a hot day and taking full advantage of grammas excellent cooking skills...bubye!

the girls are gone...

well i said goodbye to allison and rachel about a half hour ago. they're meeting someone for breakfast in Kansas City, so they left here at midnight or so. i hated to see them go though, i always hate to see them go. i have such fun whenever they're around, and texas is, unfortunately, so rediculously far away from wisconsin that i can't just hop in the car and make a weekend visit, or vice versa, though i sure as heck wish i could. allison and i have gotten so close this year and i love that, but i wish she were here all the time. phones and computers are nice, but nothing beats being in person. anyways, we did have fun this week, despite the fact that i was busy a lot and wasn't around as much as i wanted. their stay here was well documented with photos. rachel is a professional photographer, so that amazing camera that she has was everywhere, catching everything. man is she good though. she took some pictures tonite of me and my brothers and wow...they're amazing! we look awesome and i'm not really one to seriously brag about myself. somehow, she and that camera made us look great, much to my delight and the joy of mom and dad. dad was so cute when he was looking at them on her computer. he got this adorable grin and was like, 'oh that's a good one...and that one..oh i like that one...' and so on and so forth. mom acted quite similarly, only i expected it out of her. and rachel took some pictures of me and allison that are quite good...and some of me and allison and two of the cows that i have shown. allison and i both love cows...so it's quite fitting that we should take pictures with them. i guess we didn't do a whole lot this week, just hung out, played cards, played with calves, ran around in the corn (funny pictures from that endeavor), took pictures of everything, ate way too much good food...you know, the usual. everyone was over to my house last night and we made pizza and had a jolly ol time, then tonite, after the picture taking session, we went out for a fish fry...quite tasty. oh, and we've decided we're writing a book...but that's all i will say about that for now. i don't know how involved i will be in this process...but i'm sure if it does get written...my name could potentially fit in there somewhere. anywho...i had a wonderful time with them, and i'm quite sad that they had to leave. i was SO tempted to go back with them and then greyhound it back here sometime, but since rachel lives away from home, and works, and allison works and has classes... things wouldn't work out too well. though...rumor has it that gramma wants to go down there sometime, but doesn't like to fly alone...hmm...am i seeing a potentially wonderful ticket to texas??? rachel jumped on that one for me, saying that i'd make a perfect travel buddy...way to go rachel! and i've had a bit of experience in airports so i'm good to go. alright well...i think this is all i have for now. more wonderful things about those girls will no doubt surface, but for tonite, i must end here. i do wish that josh could have made it up for this trip, but alas, the responsibilities of growing up called him away. at least i saw him at christmas. ok, i truely am finish now...bubye!

today...and last night...

well...the summary of my summary of my trip to europe is still on hold, as it will be for an undetermined length of time because a) i'm feeling lazy, b) allison is visiting and c) i just am not in the mood to summarize. in other news...allison is indeed here in wisconsin with me (as well as her sister rachel). they arrived at gramma's yesterday afternoon and then allison and i proceeded to stay up the whole night while i was watching some cows for some people overnight at a big dairy show at the county fairgrounds. well, i take that back, i was awake the whole night, allison faded out on me sometime shortly after 3am. it was a mostly uneventful night. basically, i was there to watch over some very very valuable animals and make sure they stayed fed, clean and safe from drunken people...which i did. there were a few drunks about, one in particular who decided to talk to us. allison eventually asked him to excuse himself, and he stumbled away...straight lines were obviously not something he could manage. anyways, we got home around 5:30 this morning, found the door to gramma's house locked, so allison and i headed to my house and my bed...yes, my twin bed. cozy...quite cozy. and when it's really warm outside, it's not quite so fun, but seeing how we were both in need of a great deal of sleep, we made it work. i got up at about 10:30 and allison slept till after 1, when i finally woke her up and told her we were going to the lake. we had a jolly afternoon at the lake and i revived my tan while canoeing and swimming. a word of warning...don't put allison in the back of a canoe where she might have to steer. lets just say that my grandpa was having a good laugh at our 'straight' line back to their dock from the other side of the lake. ethan and i did fine paddling around, and i was fine when i was paddling alone while ethan was fishing, but then allison decided she wanted a try. we only got really close to tipping once though, when she was just starting to get the hang of things. thank goodness ethan is good at keeping his balance or the three of us would have been stuck, sunk up to our waists in muck with a little water on top on the wrong side of the lake. oh well, we had fun and caught a turtle, who's name is now Franklin. he doesn't like us much, but that's ok. then tonite we had dinner at gramma's...wonderful as usual. we attempted some rounds of card games, but exhaustion over came most of the players and the evening ended early. well, it's not early anymore, and i have to be up, showered and out of the house by 8am tomorrow... so bubye

the world traveler returns!

well, i'm officially in love with europe. i had the greatest time, saw so much amazing stuff and still can not believe that I was there and did everything i did! sometime, hopefully soon, i'll get a whole long post in here about it, but when I typed up a summary...it ended at about 4 and a half pages...so obviously i'm not putting that as a post on here. maybe in parts, but i think i'm going to attempt to go through and summarize my summary and if you want the whole thing, just ask me and i'll email it to ya. that's the best I can do for now, and even that may have to wait for a little while, as my dear cousin allison will be joining me here in the lovely state of wisconsin tomorrow afternoon and i don't plan on devoting much time to my computer when she's here to play with. so to my loyal blogger fans...or to the one i have other than allison...i'm sorry for the inconvenience, but if you truely love me, you'll learn to wait. yes...a lesson in patience...oooo...just what you wanted! just don't get yourself too excited, because the summary of a summary may not be a very good summary after all. bubye for now then.