Wow...aren't I a slacker!

Hello again! Sorry it's been so long. There's been a lot going on. It took a while to get going again after my surgery. I guess the older you get, the longer recovery takes. We also found out that my mother-in-law has Stage IV Melanoma. She was in the hospital for 2 weeks, and they finally started chemo last week. She's home now, and feeling okay...we're just keeping our fingers crossed and praying for a miracle that she beats this. Then we had 2 Thanksgivings...one at the hospital with my mother-in-law on Thursday, and then one at our house with my parents on Friday. It was a busy weekend. :)

Since then it's been a whirlwind of work, Cub Scout meetings, PREP classes to get Jason ready for receiving his First Holy Communion, getting ready for Christmas, etc. I've just had no time to get on here and blog!

What a crazy week!

Wow, what a crazy week it’s been. Surgery went well. I do feel better, but it’ll be a few weeks before I really feel good. Halloween was fun. Jason went as The Grim Reaper (no more cutsie costumes for my almost-7-year-old!) and Sami was a pumpkin. Though, she squeaks like a monkey so that might have been a better costume. Pictures will follow, if I ever get the time to upload my camera!

I started back at work this past Wednesday. It was a difficult adjustment the first day, but by day two, everything was fine. The only thing I didn’t anticipate was that now, wearing pants that button, the button presses right on my belly button which is where one of my incisions is. It hurts while I’m sitting down, and if I happen to lean on a counter or desk or something. Maybe I should wear elastic pants next week.

It should be a fun weekend. The Sea and Sky Spectacular is this weekend at the Jacksonville Beaches (The Blue Angels will be performing) and I think we’re going to that on Saturday afternoon. The fair is also in town. I doubt we’ll get there. That’s too much to fit in one weekend along with chores, Church, soccer x 2, etc. No rest for the weary! At least soccer is almost over for the season. I doubt we’ll sign Jason up for it again. This is his third season, and he’s really not enjoying it any longer. He said he’d like to join Cub Scouts, so we’re going to go that route for a while. It’ll give him a chance to make some more friends. Now we just need to decide on whether to join the troop associated with Jason’s school or the one associated with our Church. Decisions, decisions…

We’re finally seeing some cooler weather! I’m a northern girl, and I miss having four fully defined seasons. I even miss snow, believe it or not. I hate wearing shorts on Christmas! We do get cold in winter, but it usually warms up into the 70s by afternoon every day, so I only get a taste of cold in the mornings and evenings. It’s not enough, but better than nothing.

Wow… Less than 3 weeks till Thanksgiving. Rick wants to have it at our house. I do too really. My mom needs a break after 43 years of having one or usually both holidays at her house. But we have a small house. We may have to limit it to my parents and Rick’s mom. Any more than that and we won’t fit at our kitchen table, even with the leaf in. I’m talking it’s a REALLY small house. So, I’d better get my ass in gear and get it cleaned!!

Surgery tomorrow

Okay...here we go... I've got my surgery scheduled for tomorrow at 12:30 pm. They're going to remove my gallbladder and take a larger biopsy of my liver. I really hope I feel better afterward.

It's been a crazy few days, trying to prepare to be out of work for a week. Plus, some of my coworkers are pains in the ass. There's one girl who I really just wanted to smack! She decides, out of the blue, to train me on a new function less than a week before my surgery...and expects me to be up and running, working the report! Well...there was just no way! I had all my regular duties, plus trying to get OIs (operating instructions) written, plus tying up loose ends before I'm on leave. She kept nagging, and nagging and finally I had to speak to my boss about it.

ARGH! I can't think straight. I'm finally done with everything here and I just want to go home and enjoy my last night before I won't be able to hold my baby for a week or two (no lifting anything over 10 pounds after surgery).

Signing off for now...

What a craptastic day...

I hate days like this.

A couple of months ago, I scanned some VERY large documents here at work (50+ pages each) and, after confirming the scan was good, shredded the originals. Now I can't find the files of the scanned documents! I've looked EVERYWHERE...they are GONE! However, since it's been a couple of months, I can't ask the network people to restore any drives, because then we'd lose all the work we've done in the interim.

Oh crap.

What a weekend!!

Oh my, where to begin! We went to Grandma and Pop-Pop's this weekend to celebrate Sami's birthday with family. On Saturday, my Aunt Judy and two of her three son's came to visit, as they're in the States on vacation for a week (they live in Germany). Pop-Pop and my hubby Rick took Judy's youngest, Oliver, and my son Jason fishing...leaving Grandma, Judy, Alex (Judy's middle son), Sami and me at the house. Just before they went, Pop-Pop was out the garage smoking a stinky cigar (I don't know why he took up that nasty habit when he worked so hard to quit smoking when I was a baby).

Shortly after they all left, Grandma (my mom) and I were changing Sami's stinky diaper. We could still smell the cigar...and now add the smell of a poopy diaper. Judy insisted she smelled something more...something different. Well...thank God she did!

She went to the garage, with all of us following, and the smell was extremely strong. When my mom turned on the light, the garage was FULL of smoke! They opened the garage door, and I could see...down the side of my mom's car...the source of the smoke. There are some plastic shelves at the front of the garage on which my dad stores all kinds of cleaning supplies and other chemicals. Apparently, he set the stinky cigar down on the shelf, right near some dirty rags, and an ash or something started smoldering. All I could do was point and shout, as I was holding Sami in my arms! Judy ran over to investigate, while I turned around, ran and got Alex and got Sami, him and myself out of the house. Alex is a junior firefighter over in Germany (he's 17), so he took charge with the fire extinguisher with Judy's help. Judy moved her car and my mom backed hers out of the garage so they could get full access to those shelves...and we discovered that right below the shelves was a big bag of fertilizer. You know...the kind of stuff that the Okalhoma City bomb was made out of?

Judy pulled stuff out onto the concrete, while Alex weilded the fire extinguisher. My mom opened all the windows in the house. I felt a little lost because all I could do was stand there holding Sami. I obviously couldn't put her down.

So, after the crisis was over, we really couldn't go back in the house for a while due to the smoke fumes, so we got some folding chairs and sat in the driveway...waiting for the fishermen to return. When they did... my dad walked right past us after parking at the curb. Didn't even stop to ask why we were blocking the driveway. We all stayed outside while my mom took him inside to "talk" to him. Needless to say, things were a little tense. They got more tense when we found out that he insisted he did nothing wrong...that it must have started on its own. I'm really beginning to wonder about my dad.

Mom isn't finished with him. She plans to talk with him further. All I've asked her is to ask him to not smoke at all while we're visiting...not even outside. Not only does no one in my family like it, but I have asthma...and I don't want my babies breathing the smoke at all. If he refuses to not smoke while we're there, then we won't be visiting again, I'm afraid. I won't risk my children's health...or their lives!

So...how was your weekend?

And again...

Your Observation Skills Get An A

Hardly anything gets by you... You have a great memory and eagle eyes

How Observant Are You?

Yet again...

Your Mood Ring is Dark Red

Very happy Love Passion

Mood Ring Generator

Here we go with the Blogthings again!

Your Sensitivity Score: 71%

You are a highly sensitive person. Pretty much everything effects you. You are tuned into the vibe around you, and someone's bad mood can bring you down. But you also easily share in someone's joy - whether you know them or not.

Are You Extremely Sensitive?

Another blogthing...

You Are 32% Weirdo

You're a little weird, but you'd be even weirder if you didn't have a few quirks. You are just strange enough to know it, but nobody else seems to notice your weirdness. That's because, deep down, everyone is a little freaky!

Are You A Weirdo?

"Old post" explanation

Just a quick comment to explain all the "Old post..." posts.

I used to have a Live Journal account. Live Journal is blocked at work. Work is really the only place I have time to get online anymore (sad, huh?). So I switched over to Blogger which is not yet blocked.

I didn't want to lose those old posts...but I didn't want to maintain an outdated journal that I didn't use anymore...so I copied them all over and backdated them so I'd have them to look back on. I wrote them during a crazy time of my life and find it interesting to see what things were like back then. Oh, who am I kidding. My life is crazy ALL THE TIME!! :)

Off to the OR I go...

So...I have to have surgery. I've been on a merry-go-round for about 6 months now. You see, after Sami was born I was having some odd symptoms that I at first associated with my body getting back to normal after pregnancy. But instead of getting better, they've gotten worse. I was concerned I had a problem with my liver, because I had pre-ecclampsia with both babies and the symptoms I was having were the same as what they kept asking me about during the pre-ecclampsia, so I went to the doctor.

Now...4 doctors, 1 ultrasound, 3 CT scans, 1 CT-guided biopsy and 1 MRI later, I find that I have multiple gallstones and 3 liver lesions. They tell me that the liver lesions are something called Focal Nodular Hyperplasia which is fairly common and asymptomatic. Apparently all my symptoms are from the gallstones. They are going to remove my gallbladder on 10/24/07 and do a second biopsy of the liver lesions to make certain it's FNH and not something more malicious...however they won't remove the FNH lesions unless my symptoms don't go away or the lesions start to grow.

So...once I recover from this surgery, hopefully my symptoms will disappear. If not, I will have to undergo a second, more extensive surgery. Ugh.

I'm not looking forward to this...but it'll be better than the nausea, pain and vomiting I'm living with right now...so...hurry up and get here, October 24th!!

Wow...what a weekend!

So, Saturday, 10/6 was my baby girl's first birthday! I can't believe a whole year has gone by! We had some friends over for cupcakes and Sami really loved her French Vanilla cupcake with Chocolate Fudge frosting! It was a fun day for all...until later on.

Our little princess is a sneaky one. She's quick, and quiet and it almost got her hurt. She was down on the floor in the living room, scooting around. Daddy didn't realize she was down there, and he set his hot coffee on the end table. Within about 10 seconds, she had upturned the cup and covered herself in coffee! Luckily, we scooped her up and got her to the bathroon sink quickly. We stripped her little dress off and started splashing cold water on her chest to stop the burning process. She was bright red from shoulders to diaper! Daddy grabbed the Bactine and I sprayed it on and rubbed it in several times. We then put a new diaper on her, but left her clothes off so I could keep an eye on it in case it blistered. Well, by bed time there was only a little redness left and by Sunday morning, it was totally gone. Thank God!!

Monday she had her one year check up. She's a healthy little Monkey! But she did get 3 shots and some blood drawn. That evening, she managed to get one of the little bandaids off her leg and into her mouth. She started choking in her carseat, but luckily Daddy thought fast, pulled off the road and got her out and her throat clear very quickly.

Tuesday, while crawling around the living room, she looked up at me with a big old hairball hanging out of her mouth (rolled up on the carpet by the vacuum...instead of being picked up) and a HUGE piece of glass in her hands!!! Apparently, when she kicked my glass off the table over the weekend and Daddy cleaned up, he missed a 3-inch piece of glass just under the sofa. Guess who found it without even trying!? Is there anything this child misses??

Needless to say, after this 3-day weekend I have a whole new crop of gray hairs!!!

Thank God she is my last baby! Between her and her almost 7-year-old brother, they keep me hopping! They look so much alike you'd think we cloned him to get her! :)