catch-up

wow i am so behind in blogging. sorry, world.

i have important things to do these days. school is taking over my life.

being an RA is pretty busy too. trying to make all the girls happy. be their friend. kick their butts when they do bad things. its a stressful life i got going for me here.

BUT, aside from being sick, all is well. school's great, work is great, my boyfriend is SUPER great, my family is great. haha. here are some highlights from the past month:

Scotty came to visit me two weekends ago :) way fun. minus his car breaking down 20 minutes after he got here. stupid. but we still had fun... everything we did just had to be in walking distance from my dorm! for example... BOWLING!

mind you, my right hand is still swollen and useless. so bowling with it didn't really work out because a) my fingers and too large to put in the holes and b) i can't hold more than a pound without wanting to cry haha. so i had to bowl left handed. i was bracing myself for an extremely embarrassing display of bowling... hoping to get at least 40 or so. BUT NO. i got freaking 120 with my left hand. that's better than i've ever done with my right hand hahaha. weird, huh? i never break 100. maybe i should start trying other things with my left hand.

my hot boyfriend
we played 3 games... i won 1 :) woooo!
cute cute. he's coming again this weekend for general conference! should be fun. i'm way excited. this week will be the slowest of my life... it feels like i haven't seen him FOREVER! i dont know what i would do if skype didn't exist.

Saturday, i got the opportunity to go to the relief society broadcast in salt lake city! we made a whole day activity out of it haha.

we started the day off at the draper temple with baptisms...

abby, me, heather, and alyssa
then we had lunch and shopping at IKEA :) mmmmm. so good. and so fun! we all decided we are ready to have our own houses and decorate them. so much fun stuff there. then we went to nordstrom rack... very dangerous place for me. but i only bought necessities :)

then i got to see my parents for like 10 minutes in salt lake! they were driving through to take grandma barnes to the airport. i dont have any pictures of that. but it was so good to see them. i miss my parents so much!
then onto the broadcast! it was so good. after every single talk we were all like "wow.. that was so good!" hahaha. and Thomas S. Monson is so cute and so funny. i love him. his talk was perfect for me... i liked it a lot.

my friends are so cute! this is me, abby, heather, alyssa, alisse, and audrey. oh the power of a-names. it was so good seeing all of them.

well, i've procrastinated my homework long enough!

i have books calling my name.

ashley

boyfriend

this is my boyfriend...

his name is scotty...we met in the baptismal font at the temple...

and he is freaking cute.
he is an amazing singer and back scratcher.

he is hilarious, romantic, "like... really strong", sweet, spiritual, and so manly. hahaha.

its hard being away from him, but we're making it work! since our first date two months ago, we've pretty much been inseparable haha. it doesn't even feel like two months, i feel like i've known him forever. i love being around him! he makes me so happy :) we always have fun together, whether its dancing like idiots in his car, going to yogurtland, or having dinner with our families. i miss him a lot. but guess what.... 8 days!! :)

the many stages of ashley's hand

well, well, well. the day finally came! yesterday at approximately 4:15 i got my stitches out :)

lets take a walk down the beautiful memory lane...

these past two weeks have been great.

not.

oh look, here is my hand just minutes after the accident. bloody, numb, tingling. great times.

then i got my 15 stitches. it was pretty exciting for the first couple of days... until i realized how much i missed the sweet feeling of washing my hands, brushing my hair, writing with a pen or pencil, showering with both hands, wiping as i go to the bathroom, unscrewing water-bottles, sleeping without car accident nightmares, brushing my teeth, washing my face, opening a door, closing a ziplock bag..... need i go on? any normal task had suddenly turned into a problem haha.

15 stitches. 12 on the surface, 3 dissolvable ones down deep.

freaking gross.

note the excessive bruising... super attractive. my new hobby is tracing my large hand, and then tracing my small hand inside of it to see the difference.

HOORAY!!! stitches are gone. i was literally bouncing with excitement the whole way to the hospital.
so happy.

its so great. but i do have some points of concern...

1. my nerves might take MONTHS to grow back. suck. i can't even make a fist haha. but its getting a lot better.

2. its been nice having a legitimate excuse to not go to the gym. but now i can only use that for two more weeks :( the doctor said i can't put a lot of weight on it or else it could split back open again (even if i hit my hand on a wall really hard haha... not sure why i would in the first place?).

3. i wanted a really cool scar... but... i'm thinking now that it will just blend in with all the lines on my palm haha. oh well.