Can you die of being tired?

If there are misspelled words, utter nonsense, or any kind of emotional outbursts in this post, it is because I am inexplicably, incredibly, no-joking-about-it exhausted. If Josh were writing this, it would be that same kind of tired except doubled.
On average we both have been getting around five hours of sleep a night since school/work picked up. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but I think we have reached the point where, if we could stop and sleep, we wouldn't because we are too sleepy to sleep. Does this make sense? It just occurred to me that it will only get worse when we decide to have a baby. Gasp.
One of these too crazy tired to sleep nights happened last night. I was examining my toes, going cross eyed with the effort and lack of shut eye, when I asked Josh, "Could someone die of tiredness?" (Long pause while I feel my sleep devil prodding me awake with his pitch fork.) Josh went into a deep, sleepless stupor considering my question. I continued, "I mean, could your organs just get so tired they would cease to function? Would your heart and brain want a break so badly they would just take one without your permission?"
After we walked around Wal-Mart at midnight looking for a specific brand of granola bars for my nutrition class, Josh came to the sound conclusion that someone would pass out before their body would stop working.
I think I like this conclusion as much as he does. I think we are going to try and get some sleep...another night...maybe...if possible (please?).

The Plunger Incident

Note: This is a story of neuroticness on both parts of husband and wife.
Josh and I love our little apartment. Not only does it have more storage shelves than any other squishy apartments I have seen, but it has an arched doorway. (I still geek out about that part.) It is in the basement of an old house, and has been recently (we think) remodeled. However, in all of the painting and carpet shampooing, the landlord must not have used the toilet. Had he used the toilet, he would have noticed a serious discrepancy between the flushing mechanism and the feces actually going down. So our toilet does not work sometimes. I am saying this so that anyone who reads this does not wonder about our health conditions.
Anyway, about a week after being married, I saw the plunger sitting patiently next to our bathroom drain. Confession: I have a germ-phobia of sorts. Don't touch public restrooms without a paper towel- that sort of thing. When I saw the potentially feces coated plunger in the very same place where I wash, I demanded an explanation from Josh. Slightly taken aback at my sudden burst of hostility, he simply said that his father had taught him to put the plunger in the tub after using it to prevent it from drying on the wooden cabinet surface under the bathroom sink, causing a stench. After a good fifteen minutes of my disgust, and his calm reassurance that I would not be touching the place where the plunger dried in the tub (it being right next to the drain), we came to a somewhat shakey compromise.
We would buy a gallon of ice cream, and once the ice cream was gone, we would use it for the plunger, thus avoiding both the stench from contaminated wood, and my developing an ulcer over the germs touching my epidermis. This was supposed to be the end of our debate. BUT as things go, it happened again...with slight variations.
This time I heard the tub running at an odd time of day. I opened the bathroom door to find Josh rinsing the plunger off under the running tub water. Nearly gagging, I left the scene of the crime. According to Josh, he was complying to my conditions. The plunger was not drying in the tub. It was only being rinsed off in the tub. He had a valid point. The discussion is still up in the air to this day, but I did learn two very valuable lessons:
1. Little compromises are wonderful. We both felt like we had accomplished something small, but good, with the ice cream bucket solution.
2. Most likely, there is an explanation.

School Days

Kind of funny how things work out. I just get used to having someone next to me in bed and now I am supposed to get used to going to sleep without him. Thus, I am writing this rather than failing again at sleep.
Well, we had both better get used to this schedule as it is the one we will be living for the next two semesters. Our days have gone something like this: I wake up (?) at five and go to work at six. Josh rolls out of bed and then goes to his morning job at seven until his classes start at nine. We both work/go to classes until four and then spend two hours together before Josh goes to his night job at six-thirty and I study/go to bed. We are both taking fourteen credit hours of intense classes (since both of us are finished with our General Ed. requirements). We both agree that Spanish is the pits- the fly on the watermelon- the calories in the chocolate- the stain on the favorite shirt- the- you get the idea. Unfortunately, sixteen language credits are required for my B.A. I don't have much sympathy for Josh as he is being masochistic and taking this torturous class of his own free will and choice. Thankfully we are taking an institute class together on Tuesdays/Thursdays called "The Gospel and the Productive Life". So far it is a very applicable class with new spins on old ideas.
I was recently called as the Relief Society secretary. It is an exciting calling (yes, I am serious). Josh and I are both thinking something is going to have to go or we will both go crazy with my three jobs and Josh's two.
Anyway, this is not a whining post. We have been very blessed with FAFSA this year and Josh's scholarships. It literally pays to be a married student;-) Hopefully we will be able to take care of my student loans with the extra money. Go figure. Josh brought his brains into this relationship and scholarships and I brought debt and more laundry than is humanly decent.
If you should be wondering how this picture of my old roomie and I clinging to a bridge is applicable to this post, it is the beginning of the semester. Enough said.

Festive Festivities (and a Couch)

These last couple of weeks have been very busy for us. Friday, July 23 was my sister's wedding. It was a grand occasion and matched her personality perfectly with pink, black, glitter, and lights. Josh and I were both too googly and out of it to really hear and understand the things that were said in our ceremony, and so Lucy and Preston's wedding ceremony gave us a chance absorb the advice being given. Josh and I have been anticipating Lucy's wedding almost indecently, knowing that July 23rd would be the day we would trade in our camping chairs and become the proud recipients of a couch with a removable back! "Ideal for basement dwellers and other such low-lifes." JK.
The wedding happened to be part of our DeGraffenried Family Reunion, and as such, there were many many children with loud, exuberant, small children voices. Considering Josh is from a family of two children, he did fairly well for his first family reunion where he could not move from one room into another without being knocked off his feet from three different directions. The 24th of July was spent Kanosh style with a parade, talent show, free dinner, and much vegetating on the park lawn. Other than the impending doom of my cousin Pam leaving on her mission hanging over our heads (kidding Pam, I am happy for you), seeing the family was great. I love them so much, and I know Josh gets more fond of them with every visit.
My youngest sister Sarah has been spending the week at our house, entertaining us with her philosophies on dolls, movies, cereal choices, and hair styles. We get a bang out of her prudish ways, and wish we could justify spending this kind of money every week. Monday we went to one of the out door, children centered Shakespeare plays (The Green Show). Tuesday was-disappointment-at-not-being-tall-enough-to-go-down-the-slide-at-the-pool day, and yesterday we had dinner at Wendy's and saw "Despicable Me" at the theatre (a wonderful movie!). As soon as dad comes down and checks Sarah out, my old roomie, Jessica, is coming down for the weekend. Wow. What a week!
Well, that's it for the Kirkmans. Tune in next week for glory days before "the end" (aka- school starting).

Meat Loaf and other incidents...

Our house officially became our home when I made meatloaf on Sunday. This may seem silly, but I have never actually cooked a meal in my life, and until I got married, I had absolutely no intention of ever doing so. But after our food gift cards ran out, and we began to notice the toll eating out was taking on our tiny budget, I began to look back with more fondness than ever on my own mother's mouth watering, home cooked meals. Now meat loaf is nothing extravagant but compared with the sad history I have of cooking, it was a grand achievement. Basically, this is how it went down: I put the simple ingredients into the bowl, and instead of letting my hands get dirty like a proper husband would, Josh mixed the meat with his own hands. (There is something about raw, red meat that makes me gag when I touch it.) A bit crispy around the edges, but over all, my first cooking experience did not turn out too badly.
My next trial at cooking came last night. I had this grand vision of the noodle salad my mom makes when we went to Lin's at six p.m. and bought about ten different vegetables, but by the time nine-forty rolled around, both Josh and I were ready to eat the mess regardless of how it tasted. Our troubles began when I discovered that we had no cutting board; rather than slice up our landlord's counter tops, I found a cereal box and began using that. When it got soggy, we moved on to the plastic lid of an old can. It took eons to peel and cut the veggies while Josh slaved over uncooperative bacon. Later, when I went to drain the water from the noodles, I found we had no sieve thing. Using my hands to prevent the noodles from going down the garbage disposal did not work so well. Half of them ended up in the sink/disposal anyway. We were both ravaged at this point and decided to scoop the noodles out of the disposal and eat them despite the slimy texture.
Note to self: boxed foods are acceptable for the newly wed.

The Family Business

Josh finally found a job! It is only part time, but it will help out for sure. As luck would have it, he is going to be a janitor for the Eccles dorms on campus. The funny thing about this is that not only will he be a janitor, but I have also had the honor of being a seasoned janitor myself, with my chemical handler's training completed and everything. According to my supervisor, if there were no janitor's on this beautiful campus, the population of secretaries complaining about their unsanitary desks would sky rocket, resulting in an estrangement between not only the administration of our university and the faculty, but also between students and alumni. Together, my husband and I will become part of those illustrious few who are heroic in their pursuit of the non-hazardous floors and child safe toilet facilities. (Note: This is to be read with sarcasm. I am grateful for my job, but in no way is it this glorified.)
Josh and I are very happy with this pleasant turn of events. We hope that he will be able to find another part time position so that we can both work forty hours a week and pay for school.

Spider Catching

As expected from a newly married person, I am going to have a lot of praise and such about my new husband (hopefully it will continue;-).

On Monday night we came back from our holiday weekend very weary. We had spent time with both my family and Josh's, doing festive 4th of July things (eating way too much in my case), and so when I saw a huge brown spider above our bed, I had a come-apart of sorts. Anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I am deathly afraid of spiders. In fact, I would rather sleep with snakes wrapped around my feet than spiders nibbling on my toes. Anyway, Josh came to my rescue but to no avail. The spider leaped from his position on the wall and was instantly lost in our bed sheets. After an episode of intense frustration and worry, I decided we would sleep on the living room floor in our sleeping bags rather than brave the spider infested bed. Since our living room furniture consists of camping chairs, it made for a rather nice, wilderness-y set-up. I drifted off to sleep around eleven and woke up alone at one a.m. to the sound of a dresser drawer being shut. When I went to find the source of the commotion, I found Josh beginning to remake our bed. All he said was, "I found the spider and killed it." While I had been drifting, he had spent a good portion of the night rearranging the bedroom, hunting down our arachnid enemy. At that moment I knew I had married the best, most persistent spider catcher in the world.