Hello from San Fran!

I am at my Auntie’s house and we are having a great time….as if we wouldn’t we are girls! On a girls weekend.

My Mom was so surprised, she nearly had a heart attack and while she was hugging me, she was screaming in my ear!!
My sister and I succeeded in giving her the surprise 60th birthday of her life. We were so excited to be able to do that for her. She loved her new video camera as well and we went to the mall and walked around all day and ate dinner at The Cheesecake factory. It was a great day.

Now we are sitting around looking at gramma’s old jewelry and reminiscing about things past. It’s surreal to be here and see my younger cousins who are all grown up. I’m sitting here remembering running around with them as a teen and being there for some of their life milestones. Good times…

Today we went to lunch at this great mexican resturaunt and ate way too much yummy food. Then we went to the Mall again and looked around. I bought a green and sliver ring a Macy’s that will always remind me of our weekend together.
Then I asked if we could go see the Pacific since it’s been so long since I’ve seen it. We ended up touring the city and going up to this place called Twin Peaks (not sure if the show was based on that, but whatever) that over looked the city. It was so cool I could see for miles and miles. I even saw where I grew up in Alameda! I also saw the Golden Gate Bridge and all of downtown. It was so awesome. It was very windy and cold tho. I haven’t been too cold here, but it is definately a different climate than Texas!! Here is my with the city behind me.

We leave tomorrow and I am already not looking forward to it. Even if I don’t get sick on the plane ride, I don’t really like to fly I have decided. A girl can change her mind if she wants to, ya know. And I don’t want to leave my family. I feel this way every time I visit with them.  Life. It’s bittersweet.

Sometime life is so complicated

I am beginning to wonder if I will ever be done with health issues. If it’s not one thing it seems to be another. Now I like attention and concern as much as the next person, but there is only so much you can talk about your bowels and privates before others start to feel uncomfortable. I don’t normally enjoy talking about my private life and body parts, but like I have always said, “My life is an open book”. If I go through something and my talking about it helps another person through the same thing or gives them information or advice I think I should be open about them.

With that comes (eventually) the point where I get sick of having these issues. Today was one of those days. Everyone asked me how I am doing and although it hurts ( I had a skin biopsy in an unmentionable place) I got thru it. What I am tired of; is going thru all these stupid health issues. My colon, my female problems, my feet, my back, my this, my that. The list seems to go on and on.

I shouldn’t complain, I am living and I have a great life. Somedays I just wish I was healthy and my skin was clear and my high blood pressure gone and …the list goes on and on. Oh well. I thank God for his provision and the body he has given me. I have all my parts even if they are faulty. God is good.

Thanks for the reality check Lord. I needed it.

Weekend Recap

  • Scrapbook night was a success! Spinach Artichoke Dip (yummiest I have made yet) and 2 whole cards!! Ok, well not productive, but successful!
  • Cleaned the house Sat. morning in spite of the 1:30 am return home on Friday night. Did you know brick (like the kind on your fireplace) can hold a tremendous amount of dust and cobwebs? I didn’t either! Oh! and you are supposed to do something called dusting when you see it? Or is that before you see it? I can never remember?
  • Went over to BlogoSpeers for dinner and game night. Jon won in Mexican Train Dominoes. Cheater. Returned home waay late.
  • Sunday, stayed home with Brenna who wasn’t feeling well. Had been feeling dizzy for a couple of days and this morning she slept and slept and woke up feeling better. (could have all been a ploy, but who knows..)
  • Jon returned home with lunch and in our haste to nurse his pounding headache and buy groceries, we missed a friends birthday party. Happy Birthday Skyler!
  • Went to choir practice at 3pm and then went straight back to the store for dip supplies and dinner for the kids. Picked up lunch staples for Monday.
  • Small groups at the Hall’s house and then back home by 8pm to completely ignore the kids and Jon while I veg out, surf the net, and catch up on blog reads.
  • Tomorrow, doctor appointment for a biopsy and hopefully return home to watch that Princess Diana story with a friend. And Then….(drum roll please) HEROES! Season premier! Woot!

That’s it in a nutshell.. then women of faith at the end of the week. Whew, I’m tired and that wasn’t even the full version!

I’m so busy…oh so busy…oh so busy and dizzy and fried!

I’m not going to even go into how my CT scan with 3 (yes three and don’t ask me where they put it all!) different kinds of contrast went. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I’m all cleaned out and the doctor called me to tell me whatever Diverticulitis infection I had previously (I’m hoping they mean this week) has resolved and I look good all up in muh bowels. So I keep with the anti-biotic and will find out next week if the Dr. still wants to see me in his office or send me to the surgeon.  If you know me well, I am sure I told you I had some pain in the colon region and called the doctor to find out if I was having another infection or what. If you don’t know me well, then skip down the next section!

Moving ON! Tonight is scrapbook night and I am looking forward to making all kinds of stuff to send to my sister who is selling cards at a craft show. I want to make some for her to sell for me. And I am going to cut some stuff for her to use on the cards. Fun stuff I tell ya!! I am going to bring yummy hot onion dip for the girls to nosh on while we work. Yum-O!

Moving ON part deux (that’s french for NEXT!) I am getting ready to leave town again for Houston! Women of Faith conference here I come! Me and a bunch of my girlfriends all travel out of town to see the WOF gals every year. We have such a good time visiting, sharing, staying up too late giggling and being away from our kids and husbands, we come back renewed and refreshed in our Faith. It’s awesome! That is next week and so I have to prepare myself and the household for me to be gone 3 days.

I’m supposed to be thawing the chicken, cleaning the kitchen, prepping the carrots, measuring the rice, picking up Lauren, stopping by Al’s for snack supplies and the coming home to Jon cooking dinner and eating before I pack the car and my snack for scrapbook night at 7. Think I’ll have time for all that? Bwuuahahahahahah!! YEAH RIGHT! lol

Ok, chicken is thawing as we speak and now it’s on to  cleaning! Charge!!!

My boy is 5!

Today is Michael Jon’s 5th Birthday. He is so excited! Our plan for the day is: Burber King for dinner with friends, presents, cake and fun!

Michael Jon, I hope your birthday is 1/2 as special as you are to me and Daddy. We love you sweetie! Happy Birthday Son!

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It’s all official Like…

Our House is SOLD! Sold as in, nolongeroursandwedon’teverhavetopayfororworryaboutthatstinkin’darnhouseagain!

We got out measly 229 dollars back from the closing and will wait a month for the remaining balance of our escrow. I still say it’s better than owing the bank or the buyers money, but it sure stings our little budget not having the extra cash to pay for much needed repairs around our own house.

Tonight is Ladies Night Out, so I’m outta here….. See ya!

Jam Packed Homecoming…

I had a wonderful weekend with my Sis and Dad. They dropped me off at the airport for my 4:00 pm flight around 3. I was already checked in, checked my baggage and went to sit down at the gate until it was time to board the plane. An announcement over the loud speaker was asking passengers of my flight to give up their seat for a $200 voucher plus the face value of their ticket. I called Jon immediately and asked him if he would mind me leaving on a later flight. He said go for it and so I did. I received a 303.58 cent voucher for another flight, good for a year! My new flight was leaving at 7:40 pm. Only 4 and a half hours to wait to get home. I told myself it wouldn’t be that bad.

I made myself comfy and put on my headphones and was planning on reading a book I got last Christmas for my Dad, who already owned it. I hadn’t even read the first page when a Mom and her two young girls came and sat right next to me. Airport etiquette says you should sit at least 1 seat away from another person as to give them some breathing room. There were a 100 other seats she could have sat in, but no, she had to sit next to me and speak in a loud demanding way to her girls. They were bored to tears and wanted to play their game boys. I tried to be polite and not get up right away as not to look to obvious that they were annoying me. I could only take about 5 min of it and I got up and walked away. After I found a much better seat under the air return and cooled off some, I pulled out my snacks and sprite and tried to enjoy my wait.

It didn’t last very long. I got up to pee. And why is it that when you find a good seat and you aren’t with anyone else who could save it for you, you come back and someone is sitting there. In YOUR seat. The rudeness. Anyway, I digress, I got up to use the ladies room and decided that a pumpkin spice frappachino sounded really yum. So I got one and sat down at the phone booth area and drank my frapp and called Natalie for an hour long chit chat while she was driving home from Houston. I enjoyed that call very much, as I don’t get to talking to her as often as I would like.
After I was done talking to her, I made my way back to the gate I would eventually leave from and looked for a seat. That flight was boarding, so there were 3 lines and crowded rows of seats, so I wandered off to look at the Brighton gift area. I browsed for about 20 min and then back to the ladies room. By this time I had about 1 1/2 hours left to kill before I could board. When my flight was transferred I asked for another pre-boarding pass and got one so I could find my seat over the wing, just one row ahead of the emergency exit row. That seems to be the very best seat for me.
When it was finally time, we boarded and made our way home. The flight was good. I didn’t get sick, which was nice and I spoke with a nice lady from Dallas for a bit. Then I put my headphones and my travel neck pillow on and promptly fell asleep. The flight took off at 7:40 pm and when I looked at my watch after waking myself up with some minor snoring (tee-hee) it was already 8:30. Only 35 more minutes to go.

I got lost trying to find my car in the parking garage, because I didn’t go back the way I came, so I was in the wrong garage until I figured it out. I met a nice lady who was looking for her car too in the wrong garage. We chit chatted the half a mile until we parted ways and found our cars.

I was so ready to drive home and get in my nice, cozy, warm bed. I walked in and was met with lots of hugs and kisses and arms all wrapped around me. I looked down at Michael Jon and saw these white puffy circles on his chest. I immediately knew they were hives. I asked Jon what was going on and he said he didn’t know what they were, but they were just getting worse. I had stopped on the way home at McD’s for supper and so when I got home and saw his poor body covered in hives, I grabbed him, my bag of food, and my drink and made my way to the after hours clinic. By this time it’s already 10:30. The clinic was closed because it was Sunday. I took him to CVS to get some Benedryl and to ask the Pharmacist what she thought, and she agreed with me he was having some sort of allergic reaction to something and I should go the the ER. So off I went. We got there at 11pm and we got back to a room fairly quickly, but then the wait began. He was visited by the nurse and the doc, the we waited for some medicine. A dose of Benedryl and a steroid shot in his bottom, which he did not like either. By this time it’s 11:45 and I asked how long we would have to wait here before we could go home. She said at least 20 min. to see if the meds are working. “Ok, I think to myself, reasonable enough.” By 1 am I am getting pissed. No one will stop in my room to see if we are ok, they look in and smile and just keep going. Grrr. MJ is sleeping thanks to the Benedryl and I am on the verge of exhaustion because I just spent 5 hours in the airport, 90 min on the plane, and now I am faced with a 2 hour wait at the ER. For what? A tsp. of Benedryl and a shot of steroids. I asked when I could go at 1am and I was told the doctor had more emergent cases and they would let us know as soon as possible. Oy. We got out of there around 1:30 or so. I carried MJ out half asleep and cranky.

We got home and went right to bed. It was quite possibly the longest day I have ever had. No wonder I slept until 11 am while a thunder storm was raging on and took another nap at 3pm until 5! It’s only 9 now and I am ready for bed again!

Back to the regular routine tomorrow at work. I am looking forward to it!

Hello from St. Louie!

bild0566.JPGHi my family! I am hanging out here with Auntie Leslie, Grandpa and Penny! Say Hi Penny! (she would wave, but she is sleeping in her house)

I had a wonderful flight. Some might not say it was too great because we hit a lot of turbulence coming thru the rain clouds, but I didn’t feel sick once!! I couldn’t believe it, if that was what it was like to feel normal, I want to do that every time!! I even considered going on a roller coaster with that motion sickness patch just to see what it’s like. So after my plane landed, we went to Cousin Franks restaurant, Frankie Tocco’s. I had baked ziti and the house salad with fried raviolis for an appetizer. It was sooo yummy. I was stuffed by the time we left. Then we drove back to Auntie Leslie’s and there was a lot of traffic on the way there. We didn’t know it then but this morning we found out that there was a bunch of accidents because of the squall line of rain and over 70 cars were involved! We got off on the right exit and avoided having to sit in bumper to bumper traffic.

We came home and talked some and visited, then Auntie made my bed up for me and I crawled right in. I flew in all the way from Dallas, and boy were my arms tired! (rim shot)
I woke up at 6:30 when the coffee started brewing and I was thinking I would go back to sleep, but I got up and was refreshed and wide awake. I got up, made my bed, and had a cup of coffee. Then I went up to see if Auntie was awake. She was up and coloring her hair. Then we both got ready and we were out the door on our way to a Holiday Organizing class at the local community college. It was informative and fun. I got some good planning tips for getting ready for the holidays.

After the class was over we met Dad for a visit with Aunt Donna and Uncle Phil. Then we headed over to White Castle for lunch and ate way too many burgers, fries, onion rings, chicken rings, fish sandwiches, double whites, and a chicken sandwich thrown in for good measure! We were stuffed and ready for a nap after that.
After we got home, Cousin Teri, cousin Donna, and Cousin Nina came over for a short visit and Nina brought her little tea cup Yorkie Gracie over. She and Penny sniffed each other and then Gracie showed Penny who was queen! Penny was scared. LOL
Now Auntie is “resting with her eyes closed” and Grandpa is listening to music on his computer while I write this post.

We had plans to go see REO Speedwagon in concert tonight, along with .38 Special and Kansas, but it’s raining, so we decided not to go because we didn’t want to stand in the rain and mud for 4 hours. So, next time we’ll buy more expensive seats! LOL

I posted my pictures to Flickr! so check it out and Brenna, I took those cloud pics just for you babe!

I love you all and miss you all- I will be home tomorrow night! Be good!

Love,
Mommy