n i c k y n a x . c o m

Episode Three of Field Trips is finished!

This one was over a month in the making as we had to film over a period of a couple weeks for it.

Instead of taking you on a trip somewhere, we’re taking you into the cherished tradition of Sunday Brunch.

Sit back, pour yourself a mimosa and enjoy the newest installment of Field Trips!

This is week seventeen in my personal “If… Project” in which I answer questions from the book “If… (Questions for the Game of Life)”

There are 125 pages of this book, each with four questions. I plan to take one page each week and answer the questions as thoroughly and honestly as I am able. In addition, I invite you to answer the questions along with me, whether it be in the comments section, your own personal blog, or just within your own thoughts.

Perhaps in doing so, we will get to know each other better, but even more importantly, get to know ourselves better.

This week’s questions:

If you had to spend one year alone in the wilderness, where would you go?

First and foremost, somewhere with a pretty steady climate. Nothing that gets too hot or too cold at any point in the year. And, being Vegan, I would need a place that also had a good sampling of various vegetation to eat. And someplace visually pleasant to look at. You know, mountains, valleys, rivers, etc. Would a national park be considered the wilderness? If so, one of those.

If you had to work in one type of factory for the remainder of your days but could choose which kind, what would you pick?

A video game factory! And I’d be the product tester. Paid to play! Booyah!

If you could possess one supernatural ability, what would it be?

I’ve actually thought about this very thing from time to time and had pretty lengthy conversations about it with Lauren. We’ve never been able to come to a conclusion that either of us felt completely satisfied with, but I’ve been able to narrow it down to three. I would love to be able to fly. Not only would it be a fast way to get from place to place, but it would be fun as hell! I would also love to be able to become invisible. I would be using that one constantly. And thirdly, I would love the ability to teleport. Yes, flying is a fast way to get from place to place, but if I need to get halfway across the country, teleporting would be even more efficient than just flying. I honestly can’t narrow it down to one.

If you had to paint your entire home, inside and out, one single color other than white, what could would you pick?

Benjamin Moore’s Dry Sage. Green is my favorite color and this particular shade of green is so beautiful. It’s been the color of my bedroom for over three years now, spanning two different apartments. It’s such a calm, soothing color and I have yet to get tired of it. Dry Sage all the way!

Those are my answers to this week’s questions. What are yours?

This is week sixteen in my personal “If… Project” in which I answer questions from the book “If… (Questions for the Game of Life)”

There are 125 pages of this book, each with four questions. I plan to take one page each week and answer the questions as thoroughly and honestly as I am able. In addition, I invite you to answer the questions along with me, whether it be in the comments section, your own personal blog, or just within your own thoughts.

Perhaps in doing so, we will get to know each other better, but even more importantly, get to know ourselves better.

This week’s questions:

If you could only keep one of your five senses, which would you save?

Well, I’d hate to lose any to be quite honest. I feel like I could still function rather well without taste, so I can rule that one out. While difficult, I feel I could adapt to not being able to hear over time. I think I could lose smell without too much trauma. That leaves me with sight and touch. Not being able to touch would be creepy as I would constantly feel like I was floating in space without the ability to feel the ground beneath my feet or the chair beneath my ass, but feeling life without seeing life would be harder I think. So I choose sight.

If you could have lived during any one period of time in past history, when and where would it be?

The 50’s would have been fun. Cool cars, jukeboxes, sock hops. What’s not to love?!

If, one by one, you had to place each of the people with you right now in another period of history that you think suits them best, when and where would you place them?

I kinda luck out on this one as there are no other people with me right now. Just Miss Jackson. And I would put her in the time of Cleopatra and she would be Cleopatra’s personal and favorite cat. She already has that attitude about her, so I think it would be a nice fit.

If you had to describe the saddest thing that ever happened to you, what would you talk about?

One very sad memory of my childhood is when my first dog died. Her name was Sophie, and she was a miniture yorkshire terrier. It was the first time in my life that I had experienced the death of someone close to me. I remember crying a lot and being very upset and confused and hurt. Even thinking about it now brings an emptiness to my spirit.

Those are my answers to this week’s questions. What are yours?

I mentioned awhile back that I was going to try to get a copy of the animated video the orthodontist made of my Invisalign case. And after all this time, I finally got my hands on it.

I’ve already watched it and disected every detail of it about 18 gazillion times. To the point where it no longer even looks like a human mouth to me, and I started freaking out thinking that the before image is actually starting to look better than the after image.

I tossed it into iMovie, dressed it up a little bit, and, with some trepidation, I am sharing it here.

This is week fifteen in my personal “If… Project” in which I answer questions from the book “If… (Questions for the Game of Life)”

There are 125 pages of this book, each with four questions. I plan to take one page each week and answer the questions as thoroughly and honestly as I am able. In addition, I invite you to answer the questions along with me, whether it be in the comments section, your own personal blog, or just within your own thoughts.

Perhaps in doing so, we will get to know each other better, but even more importantly, get to know ourselves better.

This week’s questions:

If you could have one specific power over other people, what would it be?

I think the most beneficial power I could have over other people would be the power of persuasion. Having the ability to convince someone to do most anything is very powerful and the possibilities would be limitless as to what I was able to persuade people to do.

If you had to lose everyone you know in a tragic accident except one person, who would you choose to survive?

What a horrible horrible question. I’ve spent the past week with this question marinating in my head, and every time I take a moment to consider it, I’m instantly turned off by it, and move on without giving it a moment’s thought. The only answer I can possibly come up with is that if I had to lose that many people I love, then it wouldn’t matter who the survivor was because I’d be far too devastated for it to even remotely matter.

If you could have one meal from your past exactly as it was, which would you repeat?

I would pick the meal from the first time I ate at Boma. The food was shockingly delicious. The personalized service I got from the chef blew my mind. And the company was wonderful. It was a meal where all aspects came together to make a truly memorable meal.

If you could become famous for doing something that you don’t currently do, what would it be?

I would love to be a television personality.

Those are my answers to this week’s questions. What are yours?

I was afraid of this.

The first 28 days (2 Trays) were quite enjoyable. No pain. Little Hassle. Minimal disruption to normal life.

Then Tray #3 decided to ruin my life.

Two days ago I was back at the orthodontists office for my check-up, which, much to my dismay also included the addition of twenty-four more attachments to my teeth. Up to that point, I had already had twenty-four of them bonded to the outside of my teeth to help hold the trays on snugly and assist in properly moving the teeth. This time, I had them bonded to the backside of the teeth too.

The ones on the outside, while obnoxious at first, ended up only being a slight annoyance once I had some time to get acclimated to them. They’ve caused a couple of canker sores over the past month, but I’ve had canker sores in the past and, while not ideal, a canker sore is nothing to lose one’s mind over.

The new attachments on the backsides of my teeth are, so far, a completely different story. They are causing a lot of pain and aggravation to my tongue, to the point where it’s actually painful to eat. It’s like having sandpaper rubbed over the edges of your tongue all day long. The closest real life experience, since I assume having sandpaper rubbed all over your tongue isn’t a real life experience for most people, that I can equate it to are those tongue pimple things.

You know, those little bumps you will sometimes get on the tip of your tongue when a taste bud gets inflamed or whatever the hell it is that causes those things. I feel like I would normally get them after eating an excessive amount of highly sweet/sour foods.

So, imagine having those incredibly painful tongue pimples up and down both sides of your tongue where it touches the sides of your teeth, only without the physical bump. Just the pain. And every time you move your mouth or tongue even the slightest bit, that tongue pimple gets rubbed right up against a bracket that has been bonded to your teeth.

Yeah, it’s not fun.

I got used to the ones on the outside of the teeth though. I’m just praying that my body adapts to these new ones as well and the pain goes away. And soon.

Another bad side effect of the additional attachments on the teeth is that removing the trays has suddenly become much more difficult. The attachments give the trays something to lock onto, and it was tricky enough learning how to “unlock” the trays with attachments just on the outside. I did, after a few days, develop a method that seemed to work well and as the days went on, it got easier and easier to do. But after the dentist bonded the new attachments to my teeth, even she had quite a bit of trouble getting the aligners off.

Before I left the office that day, she told me she wanted me to take them off before I left as a practice run just to make sure I could do it. Half hour later, I was still sitting there and had completely given up.

Over the past two days, I’ve started to figure out techniques that have made it a teensy bit easier to remove them, but it’s still not without some hassle. All the pushing and pulling along the thin edge of hard plastic has torn the nerve endings in my finger tips to shreds to the point where it only now is no longer painful to even type. And my fingernails caused my gums to bleed during the struggles a few times.

Today I was actually able to get the entire removal of both aligners down to under two minutes, which was a shock. Nowhere near the fifteen or twenty seconds I had mastered when I only had the attachments on the outside, but a vast improvement over thirty minutes.

And my third problem with this third set of aligners is that the top left molar doesn’t fit snugly into the aligners. It’s just a tad bit loose. It’s mostly just an annoyance as every time I bite down, I can feel it move, but also I’m a bit concerned that if my tooth doesn’t fit properly into it, then it won’t properly move my tooth and none of my following aligners will fit properly either. I’ve done a little bit looking into it online and some other people have mentioned they have had this problem too, but after a period of time, their tooth moves into position and the aligner then fits snugly. So, I’m gonna give it another day or so and if I haven’t seen a change in the fit, I’ll give the ortho a call and see what he says.

So, obviously, my honeymoon period with Invisalign is over and now I’m in for the long haul. I’m doing my best to maintain faith that this is all going to be worth it in the end and that it’s all an adjustment process and things will only get better.

Because if it doesn’t, I may just pay someone to punch me really hard and just knock my teeth out.

This is week fourteen in my personal “If… Project” in which I answer questions from the book “If… (Questions for the Game of Life)”

There are 125 pages of this book, each with four questions. I plan to take one page each week and answer the questions as thoroughly and honestly as I am able. In addition, I invite you to answer the questions along with me, whether it be in the comments section, your own personal blog, or just within your own thoughts.

Perhaps in doing so, we will get to know each other better, but even more importantly, get to know ourselves better.

This week’s questions:

If you could have one person alive today call you for advice, who would you want it to be?

Oh geez. I have no idea. I guess I’d contact someone involved in television and advise them to make me the host of some fabulous travel show, a la Samantha Brown.

If you could have any person from any time in history call you for advice, and they were to listen to what you told them, who would you want to hear from?

Abraham Lincoln. And I’d advise him to maybe skip the theatre this time. Stay home and watch some Netflix for a change.

If you could easily visit one known planet, which one would you go to?

There’s really nothing on any other planet that I have any desire to see. At all. But since I have to pick one, I guess I’d say Mars. And, I have no idea why. Maybe to see that rock formation that looks like a creepy face. But then get me the heck home immediately.

If you could have been the author of any single book already written, which book would you want to have penned?

I do want to write a book, but I guess just claiming ownership over someone else’s even easier. So, I’d say Harry Potter because I am considering the entire series one story. And with the money that property has earned and continues to earn, I could do wonders.

Those are my answers to this week’s questions. What are yours?

Just a quick note to wish the readers (all two of you) a Happy Independence Day!

In celebration I will share some new fireworks pictures I’ve taken since last year. And I’m sure it will come as no shock to anyone that they are all from Disney World. But seriously, did you expect anything different?

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!