Mango Allergy Is Really A Thing

These last two weeks have been a learning experience for sure! I am now the new owner of an Epi-pen since I have found out my new allergy is to mango. I try to be adventurous with new things and it backfires!

I usually stick to the normal fruit groups when buying produce: bananas, apples, oranges, etc. So when I went to the grocery store and saw that there was a sale on mango fruit I thought I'd give them a try. I had only tried them once before and thought they weren't the best, but maybe I had bought one that wasn't ripe and then I had no idea how to even the cut the thing open. So I bought three the first time. I let them ripen a little on the counter for a day or so and then I opened one up and it was delicious! I even cut some up and gave them to my 9 month old daughter and she loved them too! I was happy to let her try new things and see what she  likes and dislikes...she likes more things than not! I was cutting the fruit up and sharing with my daughter and then I would cut the fruit up in the skin and eat it off the skin. That's where my mistake came into effect. After eating the first three mango I went back to the store and bought four more. I would cut some up for my daughter and then I'd eat the rest off the skin. After the 3rd day I noticed a sore starting in the corner of my mouth. I didn't really think much of it because I had eaten a Flavor-Ice Popsicle and thought that I had cut the side of my mouth with the plastic. But then the sore started spreading and spreading and swelling! My entire upper lip was gigantic! I have larger lips and my brothers always made fun of me for it, but this was a whole new kind of lip! I tried to medicate by myself for a day with cold sore medicine thinking that maybe I had one of those, but then I had never had a cold sore before this so I couldn't really tell myself that was it.

By Saturday it was bad when I woke up at 4:30 A.M., so I took a Benadryl to see if that would help and then I started scouring the internet to find an Urgent Care place that opened up early. I finally found one and the doctor there took one look and said it was cold sores. I told her I had never had a cold sore before and she gave me the whole story that a lot of people have them and it's not a big deal...well, it felt like a big deal to me and my lip was even bigger! I told her it looked like poison ivy rash, but she threw that idea out the door and I even told her I had eaten mango which was newly added into my diet. Well, she sent me on my way with a prescription for the anti-viral medication, Valtrex (very expensive medicine, too!), and said everything should start to look better quick. I spent my first Mother's Day cooped up in my house because I was too embarrassed to go to church looking like a Large Mouth Bass (the loving words from my husband mind you!) By Monday morning, the swelling had not gone down. I started googling everything I could think of then it came to mind that maybe it was an allergic reaction. I started looking up mango rashes since that was the only new thing I had eaten recently. Low and behold, the first thing that popped up on my phone was how a mango rash can look like poison ivy! I knew I didn't have cold sores. I looked up everything on this and found that it was more common than not.

My upper lip was effected the most, but then it also spread to my bottom lip!

Apparently, the skin of a mango contains the same chemical as a poison ivy, Urushiol. It causes the same rash and irritation . People who easily get poison ivy will most likely get a rash from coming into contact with mango skin, but some can still eat the meat of the fruit if someone else prepares it for them. My big mistake was cutting the fruit up in the skin and eating it off the skin so my lips were coming into contact with it. I then proceeded to throw the last mango away using metal tongs....

Once I discovered this I quit taking the cold sore medicine and quickly started on lots of Benadryl. It started helping, but it seemed to be taking a long time. By Thursday, the rash was still there so I decided it was time to finally see my real doctor, who laughed at me and told me to stop being so adventurous with foods. He asked if I had an Epi-pen, which I did not even though I am pretty positive I have a shellfish allergy, he then made sure I got one of those and put me on a steroid to help with the rash and hives that had started on the side of my face and neck.

My lips are back to their normal size now. I just wish that the Urgent Care doctor would have taken more time to listen to me and not just assume that I had a terrible case of cold-sores. Now I hope that all who read this feel a little more educated on the fact that a fruit that seems harmless can cause this weird rash! And you're all welcome that I went through this so you might not have to now!

Looking Back at 2014!

2015 is off and running and I can't believe that it is almost February. It's hard to think how fast time is flying by and the fact that our little girl is already 6 months old!

Let's take a look back at 2014!

In January, we announced that we were expecting! Estimated due date was July 10.

In February, Ryan and I took our little trip to New York to be on The Katie Couric Show. Ryan is still sad about missing the Louisville Farm Show...good thing we are going this year!

Hanging out in the green room at Katie Couric.

Had to take this!

(If you haven't seen our minute on The Katie Couric Show, make sure to visit my earlier post all about the trip!)


In March, Ryan and I marked something off our Bucket List: We finally saw George Strait in concert! It was an awesome and I think this is where Sadie gets her love for country music 'cause I sure could feel her dancing the night away!

In April, we purchased our "new-to-us" vehicle so we could easily tote around our little bundle of joy and Ryan ran in the Farmer 5K at Purdue where he won a medal for his age group!

Fishing on Bruce Lake.

In May, I did a lot of cleaning. Ryan and I also went fishing a few times....I tried not to capsize the boat with my rotund baby figure!

Notes, or love threats, that Ryan would come home to see!

At the end of June, there was a huge storm that took the barn down....it was a sad day and even more sad when it caught on fire.








Now comes July! Ryan and I celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary! We spent the day fishing and then went to dinner and a movie. Always a great time when I'm able to spend the day with my hubby!

I was due July 10 and thought that if I went to the county fair I could help things move along by walking and walking and walking. I ended up being induced July 14 and we had our sweet little baby girl the next day, July 15. Sadie Mae was born 9 lb. 4 oz. and 20.5 inches long at 4:18pm. She has been a beautiful little blessing and we could not have asked for a more healthy, smiley and happy baby.

Daddy was wrapped around her finger from the beginning!

At the end of July, Ryan and I decided we needed a small vacation so we packed our little family up and headed to Moline, IL for a long weekend where we visited the John Deere Pavilion and a few other things.















In August, I prepped myself for going back to work. So this month I practically cried every single time I thought about leaving Sadie....it was not a good month!

At the beginning of September I returned to work at the local High School as a Special Needs Aide. I loved being able to work with kids again, but I absolutely missed being with Sadie. I felt like I was missing everything she was doing. This was also very stressful. Making sure I woke up in time to get myself ready, have all bags/lunches packed, get Sadie nursed and dressed for the day, drop her off, head to work, pump at least twice a day, pick Sadie up after school, try and do some laundry, and attempt at making dinner. This was stressing me out to the point of I wasn't able to make enough breast milk and I didn't like not being able to do this. There was also A LOT of crying this month too! (I'm usually not this emotional...I'm blaming it on the post-pregnancy hormones!)

Sadie loved the tractor rides.

In October and November, Ryan worked extra hours at night helping farm. So many of our nights were "family nights" spent riding in a tractor if he was in a field close to home. We also hosted Thanksgiving at our house for Ryan's family! It was so much fun...I missed being able to cook for a large group. And everything was fantastic if I might add!

We enjoyed many beautiful sunsets.

December came, and after several discussions between Ryan and I, we decided that it would be more beneficial to our family if I stayed home with Sadie. I ended the school year and have been home with Sadie for over a month and I am loving it! I love waking up to Sadie talking in her crib and then her smiling when I go to get her. The fact that I don't have to wake up at 4 am for work and get ready, but instead I can wake up and nurse Sadie and then go back to sleep before Ryan leaves. I love that I can make sure we have a healthy meal every night. And my favorite is playing with Sadie and watching her grow knowing that I am the one that t taught her these things...and it's not too bad being able to wear yoga pants all day!

Sadie's 1st Christmas Tree....Next year there will be a real one!

Well, what a year! It was fun looking back and remembering all the things we did and everything that happened....I forgot about a few of them already! Now, here's to the New Year of 2015! Let's see if I can keep up with all of my resolutions!

Our New York Experience

This past week, Ryan and I had the amazing opportunity to fly to New York City and be interviewed by non other than Katie Couric herself! It was a really fun experience since neither one of us had been to New York and this was my first time flying. I suppose I'll start at the beginning so everyone can know the whole story about how this came to be.

It all started the afternoon on January 29, 2014.... I had just gotten home from substitute teaching and I turned on the TV to relax a little before thinking about making dinner and cleaning the house. I tend to watch The Ellen Show because Ellen is hilarious! As I was watching this time I started to laugh when she began talking about these interesting online dating sites that she had seen or heard about. I laughed because my husband and I met on a unique dating site- FarmersOnly.com. As I'm watching, I just had this feeling that Ellen was going to bring up the dating site that Ryan and I met through...well turns out she did! After seeing this I quickly sent out a tweet.... the pic is proof that I actually did this!

I also included FarmersOnly in the tweet. Soon I got a tweet back from someone at FarmersOnly saying that they would love to hear our story. So I sent them a private message that looked like this....

I emailed Nicole from FarmersOnly and told her a little more about our story. Then she asked if she could call and talk about it in more detail. I said sure why not! It's fun to talk about our love story. Little did I know that when I would talk on the phone with Nicole that she would share a really fun opportunity. After telling her about why I used the dating site, how long we talked before we actually met, how we got engaged, the wedding and that we are expecting this coming July, she dropped the news....Nicole told me that people are always looking to interview people that "Found Love" using the FarmersOnly.com website. Hearing this I thought that it would be a magazine or a newspaper looking to interview. She asked if Ryan and I would be interested and of course I said yes. That's when she threw out there that The Katie Show (hosted by Katie Couric) wants to interview people that met through the FarmersOnly dating site. She then explained that they would be flying us out to New York on February 12 and interview on the 13th. Mind you this whole conversation happened on February 3rd. I told her I wasn't sure what Ryan would say to this because we had already planned to go to the National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville, Kentucky that same week, but I told her I'd let him know. 

I thought Ryan would want to go to the Farm Show, but he was all for doing this! The following are the text messages between Ryan and myself....I'm the Blue boxes and Ryan is the Grey...

After this things just seemed to fall into place for us to go to New York! After a few more days we were finally contacted by the assistant producer of The Katie Show wanting to pre-interview us for the show. We both talked with her separately to get our views on how we met and the whole story. Then it was left up to me and the travel coordinator to get things rolling and find a way to get us to NY! Before we knew it we had plane and hotel reservations in our hands that said destination: New York!

We flew out on February 12 around 1pm. This was my first time flying and Ryan was having a good time trying to make me freak out while on the plane. He tried to tell me that one of the bolts was loose on the plane wing while we were mid-flight! 

Goodbye, Chicago! 

We arrived at the Newark, New Jersey airport and we were greeted by our chauffeur who would be taking us to the Empire Hotel in New York City. I will honestly say that we were both happy to have someone else driving us around...New York is not some country back road! 

View from our hotel room.

Arriving at our hotel we promptly dropped off our luggage and headed in the direction of food! We ate at an Italian restaurant just across the street from our hotel, Cafe Fiorello. The food was delicious, or we were just  really hungry! But we also met a fun older couple that we ended up talking with throughout dinner time. Their names were Agnes and Elliot. Tables in the restaurant were so close together that another couple seated next to you was like they were at the same table, so we started up a friendly conversation. We discovered that Agnes was the co-founder of Community Food Advocates: Fighting Poverty & Hunger in New York City and Elliot used to be a violinist. He played several times at the Lincoln Center in New York, but he also told us that he was the recorded violinist for the song "Cat's In The Cradle" by Harry Chapin! How cool is that! Agnes and Elliot were also the couple that told us that if we wanted the real "New York experience" that we should take the subway to Times Square. 

So our next adventure that night was to Times Square! We jumped on the subway after being helped by a nice lady to buy our Metro tickets and most likely pissing some people off because we had no idea what we were doing! But we followed Agnes' directions to take the subway and get off after 3 stops, go any further and we would end up in the Bronx! The subway was scary. Nothing like taking the train to Chicago. We did make it to Times Square. And it sure is bright up there at night time! Here are some pictures that we took!

Can you find Batman?

After having to ask a cop and a nice young lady how to get back to our hotel using the subway we made it back to the "comfort" of our hotel room. "Comfort" as in it's not our bed and the traffic is so loud all the time! We woke up early on February 13th because a car was to be picking us up at 7 A.M. to take us the studio. We woke up and it was snowing. Waiting for our car we learned that our flight home that afternoon was already cancelled due to the snow storm that just so happened to wreck havoc on New York and the surrounding East Coast. Anyways we got to the studio and were quickly taken to the green room of The Katie Show. We sat there talking with 3 other couples that were also going to be on the show with us. There was Andy and Megan who met on FitnessSingles.com, Pia and Dale who met on GlutenFreeSingles.com, and Arni and Helena who met on chat room for singles 50 and older. We then were moved to hair and make-up (the men just had to be powdered), we were prepped on what questions Katie was going to ask us and then we were moved to back stage. We briefly met Katie while we were all being seated on stage and then the filming began! 

Ready for the camera!

Ryan and I were up first to talk and share our story....talk about being nervous! First of all, you are talking to Katie Couric. Second of all, you have like 5 cameras and all these really bright lights in your face. Third of all, you are in front of almost 100 people that have no idea who you are and probably think you are weird because you had to use an extremely unique dating site to find love. But to all those people that think using a unique dating site is weird....how many of you can say that you were interviewed by Katie Couric???? That's what I thought, so keep your comments to yourself! The interview took no time at all and we were quickly escorted off the stage back into the green room. 

We are the couple to the left of Katie when looking at the picture

Here is the link to the "Unique Love Found Online" episode:
 http://katiecouric.com/videos/unique-love-found-online/

That's when I felt like I could finally breathe again! But then came the question of how and when we were getting home. I talked with Hannah our travel coordinator and she quickly found us a new flight home...the next day at 7:15pm. We were kind of glad to be spending another day in NY, but we had no idea what to do! That's why we were glad to make friends with Arni and Helena who were on the show with us. We went to dinner with them and they showed us around Times Square a little more. We even went to see Jersey Boys (Ryan loved it!) 

At M&M World in NY...3 floors all dedicated to M&M's!

On our flight home the next day, Ryan and I decided that New York was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for these two country bumpkins! When you are used to the wide open spaces and quiet of the country you can't get used to the hustle and bustle of the city life. 

10 Things We Learned About New York:

1) There is a lot of people always moving

2) Water in the hotel room cost way too much! $7.50 for a bottle of Fiji

3) Times Square is really bright at night

4) People look at you weird when you ask for help finding your way around this ginormous city 

5) Everything is crowded or really small: restaurants, subways, hotel rooms...

6) They put snow plows and salt on their garbage trucks...genius!

7) Our New York Chauffeurs were not as nice as the chauffeur we had when we landed in Chicago

8) Even 8 stories up you can still hear cars honking their horns and the buildings just amplify the sound!

9) There are Purdue Grads there too! Ran into one at the theater when we went to see Jersey Boys. Boiler Up!

10) 20 city blocks equal 1 mile in the city. 1 mile normally equals the distance between two county roads in the country!

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Stop!

This has been a year of snow for sure! I can't remember the last time that I've seen a year this snowy before. I do remember the Blizzard of 1998 where we were out of power for days and we kept warm by sleeping in the basement next to the fireplace. 

This year has been an interesting one for sure with all this snow.  With the wind blowing we definitely had some interesting snow drifts pop up around our house. It really made it hard to get in and out of the house!

The drift had to be downsized a little so that we could get in the house, but the top of the drift was halfway in front of the door! 

This winter it's been hard to get out and do things outside with temperatures being so cold. But I've found that cold temps do not keep my husband from doing what he loves: Ice Fishing. He is out on a lake or a pond just about every weekend trying to catch those fish (or sometimes just a cold!) I've learned too, that if you want to spend time with your hubby you will try new things that he loves, so I went ice fishing with him! I've only been once and out of the 24 fish that we caught, I caught 3 of them....3. I'm a competitive person sometimes and I wasn't happy with my catches of the day, but it was still fun being on the ice and spending time with Ryan.

Having a winter like this makes me really excited about spring and summer. I can't wait to start planting my garden and harvesting the fresh produce....nothing like biting into a freshly picked sun-warmed tomato! YUM! And of course with the return of summer means that we get to welcome our little bundle of joy into the world! We are getting excited and can't wait to start working on the baby's nursery! 

The start of our garden last year, 2013.

As I'm sitting here watching the snow fall again, I can't help but notice the beauty of freshly fallen snow. Its very calm out today and everything has a clean white blanket on it. The trees are beautiful with their snow covered branches.  But it's cold out and I'm tired of snow, so I wouldn't mind if this all melted and we had some 60 or 70 degree weather! Bring on the warm weather! 

County Fair, Summer 2013

First comes LOVE. Then comes MARRIAGE. Then comes BABY???

Happy New Year!!!!! I hope that you all have had a wonderful Christmas and are starting the New Year off right!

Now let's get down to the nitty gritty of this post. You probably think there is some big news that I'm going to drop today if you've just read the title of this post....well, you are absolutely RIGHT!!! 2013 was full of surprises and Ryan and I cannot wait to meet our little surprise that's due July 10! That's right folks, we are going to be parents! 

The last 13 weeks have been a whole new life experience that are just going to keep getting more exciting! We found out we were expecting on Halloween weekend. I was one day late (I'm usually never late) and I just had this feeling that things were different. Going into freak-out mode, I started balling my eyes out and luckily my wonderful husband comforted me and told me everything was going to be just fine. I wish that would have helped me to stop crying....I wasn't crying because I don't want children. I have always known I wanted to be a mother. I was crying more because I had all these thoughts running through my head...am I ready to be a Mom? Can I handle taking care of someone else? Will I be a good Mom? Is my child going to like me? What is the future going to be like now? How big is my belly going to get? SO MANY QUESTIONS!

I finally pulled my self together and went to the drugstore to pick up a pregnancy test....but I chickened out and ended up buying tampons just in case I was wrong....turns out I was wrong buying more tampons! The next day I went and actually bought a pregnancy test along with a bunch of other crap so that I could hide the test in my basket!

When I took that first test I honestly thought I was going to have mini heart attack....talk about the longest 3 minutes of your life! Ryan wasn't home and I thought I could handle this. Well, I did my thing in the bathroom and then waited and looked and waited and LOOKED.....Was that second pink line supposed to be there???? This is when I started to mildly hyperventilate. And it was just moments after I looked at the pregnancy test again that Ryan called me. Let's just say that I cannot lie to save my life and Ryan knew the instant I answered the phone that our lives were going to change for the better. But I didn't believe that test was correct, so like any other sane person I took 3 more tests!

Eventually, after the 4th pregnancy test, I came to the conclusion that this was real. Monday morning I called the doctor's office and set up my appointment. I still laugh about this moment because when the receptionist asked me why I wanted to make an appointment all I had to say was, "Well, I just took four pregnancy tests and they all came back positive. What's that tell you?" I'm glad she had a sense of humor and just laughed with me!

That first doctor appointment was so awesome! It was the first time I was able to see our little surprise. Even though I took four pregnancy tests, I still didn't believe I was pregnant until I saw the ultrasound. The next best moment just happened the other day at my 13 week appointment when I got to hear the heart beat for the first time....such a cool sound!

It's funny to think how much a year can change things. Last year at this time Ryan and I were counting down to our wedding day, July 6, 2013. This year we are counting down the next short 6 months until we get to actually meet our little surprise!

Fun Facts About the Pregnancy:
Morning sickness: Yes! It was all day long and sometimes during the night. It only lasted from about weeks 8-11. But I never puked!
Cravings: Meat and potatoes
Maternity clothes: Not yet! But clothes are starting to get tight and I love using my Belly Band so I don't have to zip or button up my pants and feel uncomfortable all day!
Weird dreams: Been having a few!
Tired: I'm up by 5:30am and in bed by 8pm sometimes!
Felt the baby move: Not yet, but I can't wait!

Where Was Marie This Weekend??? The Pumpkin Patch

My husbands and my weekends have been filled lately with with tons of stuff. It seems like since our wedding we've had something going on every weekend since then! Weddings, a little side trip here and there, family gatherings...who knows where we will be! Well this weekend we actually had some free time! Weird to think that, but we did. 

On Saturday, I took all day to clean out some cobwebs. Literally. After The wedding, I moved in with Ryan. He's rented an old farm house for nearly 3 years. And let's face it, a single guy living in a house alone means not a whole lot cleaning went on. I've cleaned almost every room in the house and my last project was the dreaded basement. 

Ryan told me that if I cleaned the basement, he'd make me something down there to house the potatoes we dug up from the garden this year. So of course I got busy! These potatoes are taking up space in my laundry baskets and I could really use those! Hahaha

Well, as it turns out, Ryan got called into work on Saturday and didn't come home until almost 7:30 at night. But I will say this, that basement is a dang masterpiece! I was very proud of myself for how nice and clean it is. I almost wish I would have taken before and after pictures of just to show it off! But the only thing I have to show is just a few spider bites...I really don't like spiders! So, maybe one day Ryan will get his Honey-Do-List done, at least it's done on my part!

To wrap up our weekend and take advantage of the beautiful fall weather, some friends of ours went with us to the pumpkin patch. Our friends, Scott and Stacey, have a beautiful farm where they sell pumpkins and fall things. We had a blast. As you can see in the pictures to follow we were acting like a bunch of kids! But we had a blast! 

We call this the farmer and his animals!

Everyone needs a little sunshine in their lives!

Sunday was our 3 months since we've been married...we are having a blast!

If you're interested in visiting the pumpkin patch: Walker Farms located in Rensselaer, IN. 

3 months later and still very happily married!

It's been a whirlwind couple of months since the wedding. It seems like every weekend we've had something going on that we needed to be at, but we were also able to take a few "mini- honeymoons" along the way. 

This last weekend I was at my cousins wedding. All my family has been asking about Ryan and my adventures we've been on lately. One of my cousins, Andrea, gave me a great idea for the blog. She said she is always looking for where we have been or what we have been up to. So it looks like the blog may take a turn to "Where's Marie?" Haha

So to get the party started, let's go back about 3 months....wedding day!

Ryan and I were married July 6 in my family's church. Everything went off without a hitch. The torrential downpour of rain stopped right in time for us to walk out of the church to be greeted by a wonderful surprise that Ryan had been working on all week long before the wedding. The following picture says it all!

Ryan is a big John Deere fan and my family is Case IH, therefore the sign that says mixed marriage! Haha! Just some farmer humor! Anyways, the day was absolutely everything I could have dreamed it would be. And we got se pretty amazing photos to show it from our wonderful photographer, TNL Platinum Photography!

The wedding party

Mr. & Mrs. just being ourselves!

Our pictures are something that we will treasure for ever. It's only been three months and I love looking back at them already!

Well, I think this is enough to get started. Next blog will be in a few days and it will tell all about our little "mini-honeymoons!"