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Latest Updates

2008-12-19T21:04:00.002-05:00

Well, I've been out of commission for a while now. And I'm not sure when exactly I'll be back to "normal", IF there even is such a condition. Right now, the girls and I are facing several challenges, with the most traumatic at the moment being the big "D" word. Yes, I'm in the middle of a divorce. So things around here are somewhat hectic and unpredictable at the moment.

I'll update as I can. But for now, please be patient with us and keep us in your prayers during another transition in our lives.

Baby Kaidence is back home again

2008-12-10T22:48:00.002-05:00

I know I haven't posted much lately on this blog. But I will have some craft pics and projects to post, hopefully this weekend if all goes well. Between work, travel, holidays, teenagers and a new grandbaby, I'm just running behind with everything! So please bear with me.

Preparing for baby Kaidence

2008-10-29T18:58:00.002-05:00

I've not been around in a while because I've been too danged busy with life. I'm still working full time and preparing to head to Florida in a couple of weeks for the birth of my first grand daughter. I've started a webpage for her pictures and info so I can share it with you all. So just click on the blue link in the previous sentence to travel to Florida with me.

I'm still around...

2008-04-11T23:23:00.002-05:00

But haven't had time for my blog :( Geez, there is so much to catch up on that I don't even know where to start. If I can ever figure out how to post to this from my Blackberry, I could do this while stuck in traffic or in some of those boring meetings that I am forced to endure. But for now, please be patient with me.

I have some new pics to post and will try to upload them this weekend. Tina Williams has really outdone herself with her latest Faith-based kits. And I've been using them for the girls' latest adventures, along with making desktop calendars and another gift can for a very dear friend who is retiring after 34 years of work in the mental health and developmental disability field.

Around home, I've been quilting. I'm trying like heck to add some color to my living room that is all wood from floors to ceilings to walls. DH decided we just had to have new living room furniture in there and went out and bought a brown leather set. I can't stand the monotony of all that brown in there. So I'm making some colorful quilts to lay over the furniture.

The latest news about the girls....
My oldest moved to a town about an hour north of us. She's doing ok. And the grandkids are growing like weeds. Judah, the youngest, turned a year old last month. And he's the giggliest baby I've ever met. He gets so tickled about everything!

My second oldest is pregnant again. Her husband was back from Iraq only 2 months; and they're having another baby. They're still in Colorado, hoping to get orders back to Georgia this summer.

The middle child is moving back to Georgia next week....or so we hear. She says she has cleaned up her act and is doing better. However, I'm not holding my breath. As much as I want to believe her, I also know that relapse is part of the disease. And she relapses about every 4-6 months, like clockwork. And she's moving back with some former partying friends of hers. So I'm still concerned.

The 17 year old won a regional healthcare competition and is headed to the State competitions later this month. She's been doing a student internship at a local ER and absolutely LOVES it. I thought I was passionate about and fascinated by anatomy and physiology in school. But I swear, this child has me beat, hands down! Talk about an adrenaline junky....she's IT! LOL

The youngest turned 16 last month and has her first boyfriend. No dating yet, but we figure that question is going to come up in the near future. They grow up so daggum fast!!

I'm still working full time and doing ok. The ringing in my ears is worse. But I'm also noticing that it gets worse on days that my allergies are acting up. So I'm thinking somehow the two are linked? I return to my family doc next week and the allergist the following week. I'll see what they have to say about it. I was released this past week from the neuro surgeon. I still see the neurologist at least quarterly until my one year anniversary. I'm halfway there! The hair on the right side of my head has now grown out between one and two inches. It's kind of weird.....patches of it grow at different rates than other patches. And the new hair is coming in with much more gray than the other side of my head and much more than I had before the surgery. ~sigh~ I should probably start buying stock in Ms. Clairol!

DH is doing ok, but still driving me nuts. He still doesn't seem to have gotten over my aneurysm. He's still trying to call me multiple times all day long at work to see if I'm ok and gets rather cranky and edgy when I'm too busy to catch the phone. At home, he wants to be in the same room with me all the time and can't understand why I get so edgy and feel so smothered when he does so. He'd like to go to all my medical appointments with me too. But I've finally worked out a system of scheduling them all, mid-morning, on the days he works. HA!
Of course, he complains and gripes and whines about it every time. But geez, I gotta have some independence or I'm gonna explode and do something ugly! My family doc must understand this because he asks at each appointment, rather slyly, "So I assume your husband is still alive and well?" And I reply each time, "Yes, I don't know why, but I've allowed him to live yet another week." And he always replies, "Good girl. Let me know if the temptation to do otherwise starts to get the best of you. We can get you on some good meds.....or put him on some." LOL

I guess I shouldn't complain. He took really good care of me while I was down. But it's over and done with now; and I want to move on and get back to "normal" IF there even is such a state.
Well, it's past my bedtime and I hear those sheets calling me; so I'm going to go climb into them. I'll update y'all again later! :)

TGIF!

2008-02-29T23:52:00.002-05:00

What a week! Not only were we busier than heck at work, the girls were both going in opposite directions this week. Codah is at a DPA challenge this weekend, presenting her can tab creations. Katelyn just returned from Skills Vica (healthcare competition); she is headed to the State competition after having placed 2nd in the regional competitions. I'll try to post pictures from all this sometime next week.

The allergist appointment and testing was quite a surprise. The tests showed that I'm extremely allergic to cats, dust and several different molds. And I'm not just talking a "positive" to the skin prick. Those three swelled up in red knots the size of golf balls and itched so bad that they had to give me benadryl. The swelling took over a week to go down. And I still have one red knot left! I'm now on the last week of a 3 week long "medication cocktail" mixture to see if they can get my head cleared up. When that happens, it looks like I'll be getting allergy shots. No wonder my previous allergy pills weren't working! And I thought my only allergies were to codeine, cats and adhesives, with the occasional hayfever type reaction!

Other than that, I'm doing ok....just tired and feeling like I'm always running behind. I'm grounding myself to the house this weekend until I get our taxes done. I usually have those done by mid-February and sit to wait on our CPA to finish our business taxes. This year, the CPA was done by mid-February and I still haven't started our personal taxes. ~sigh~

Tonight, I went on a bread making frenzy. I was going to make a couple of loaves of Amish Friendship bread that was due to be completed tonight. But once I got started, I thought, "Ahhh, what the heck" and just kept going. I figured I might as well get a couple of months made up and in the freezer. So I made some Amish white bread, some whole wheat bread, some white chocolate nut bread and a couple of batches of cinnamon rolls. The down side of all this is that I can't resist the smell of fresh baked warm bread. And I ended up sitting at the table, beading, and eating warm bread smothered in honey butter! Awwwwww, now THAT is REAL comfort food! :) But I'll probably gain back all the weight I've lost if I keep this up! :(

For now, I'll close with a picture of Katelyn with her medal, ribbon and plaque that she won this week. I scrapped this with Teriann Hanks' Valentine Memories kit.

Update on me

2008-02-11T22:21:00.000-05:00

I'm bumming today. I'm scheduled to see an allergist on Wednesday and can't take any of my allergy meds, nor any antihistimines or decongestants from Sun-Wed this week before the testing. I didn't realize how addicted I am to my Clarinex D and Veramyst until this morning! I'm absolutely miserable without them! My eyes watered all day long. My head is congested and achy. The bones on my face hurt. My ears are itchy and achy. And I've had two nose bleeds today! Did I mention that I'm miserable without my allergy meds?!?

I was working on an Easter kit and some templates this weekend, along with some layouts for my CT designers. I'll try to get some of these posted later in the week. But for now, I'm going to bed and see if I can get some rest.

Y'all have a great week! :)

Valentine Element Freebie Day

2008-02-05T17:52:00.000-05:00

I bet y'all thought I had forgotten about you, huh? *LOL*
I didn't. We had no electricity for a while over the weekend due to the weather. Then I got busy and just never got back to it.

You can download the Valentine elements here for this kit.

Head Update

2008-01-30T08:57:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven't finished up the elements download for my Valentine's kit yet. Life just gets in the way of my Paintshop playground sometimes. I'll try to finish that up and maybe make a few more brag book pages this weekend.

My FP agreed that the PT for the facial muscles was helping and agreed to let me continue. I go back to the PT today so they can add weights to the stimulator. Weight training for the face...now this is going to be interesting! *LOL* He also changed my Clarinex to Clarinex D, trying to clear up my head until my allergy tests next month. I'm assuming this has done something, but not sure what at this point. After 3 doses, I now get a bloody nose when using more than one flight of stairs. I can go up and down the stairs at home without problems. But the elevator at work went down yesterday; and every time I used the stairs, I would get a bloody nose. So I'm assuming that the new med is indeed drying me out somewhat?

I'll be back later this evening or tomorrow with some pics of DD's 4H project for this year. She has made a complete accessory ensemble out of pop can tabs. It's really cute! And after her presentation at the State competitions, I'll post the instructions if anyone wants them.

Hope y'all are having a great week.

Valentine Kit Freebie

2008-01-27T08:54:00.000-05:00

I'm trying to finish up my kit this weekend. I made a preview with some of the papers and elements so you could see it. All of the papers and elements are 300 dpi. However, many of the papers and elements are made to fit a 4x6 cards or brag book pages since that was the original intent for my personal use. But if you can use any of these for your personal use, please feel free to do so. Here's a sneak peak:

Here is the download for some of the papers.

There's another freebie over at Teriann Hanks' blog. She's also having a 50% off sale on all her kits and templates. The coupon code is on her website. Head on over and check it out! :)

More Valentine Freebies & An Update

2008-01-24T15:36:00.000-05:00

I know; I'm running behind yet again! ~sigh~ I'm sorry.

I went to the ENT yesterday. After several tests, he states that I'm doing well and show no signs of hearing loss or infection. However, the chronic tinnitis is louder than the sounds I'm hearing. He thinks it is linked to an allergy because my histimine release is on overdrive, even with me being on daily doses of Clarinex and Veramyst. So he's ordering up a day of allergy testing next month to see if they can identify what's causing me to react this way.

I go back to my family doc tomorrow for a follow up and for him to check if there is any improvement from the facial physical therapy he so graciously agreed to let me try for this atrophy on my head. I'm proud of my progress. I don't know that it shows on my face yet. But I can feel a difference in my eyebrow, eyelid and jaw line. I can know open my mouth fully and can ALMOST raise both eyebrows simultaneously to the same height. My right eyebrow is just the slightest bit lower than my left now. So I'm hoping he will feel this is progress and will agree to let me continue with this therapy for a while longer.

Ok, here is the next Freebie template card. Don't forget to check out the cards below in the older posts too! :)

To download the above card, click here.

Valentine Card Set

2008-01-22T21:37:00.000-05:00

This next pair of cards is compliments of Teriann Hanks who graciously gave me permission to utilize her templates and kits to make and offer you these freebies. The templates are from her 4x6 sets; and the kit I used for these is called "In Between." Head on over to Teriann's website and check out all her great stuff!

To download today's freebies, click on the title to this post :)

Valentine Card #4

2008-01-21T21:05:00.000-05:00

I had the day off today for MLK holiday. I worked some on my beaded ornies for next year, did some laundry and started a new front door sign. I had planned to clean and declutter the craft room and dining room today. But I haven't felt good all day long. My head is hurting really bad today. And I'm having trouble with dizziness when I change positions. I have a doctor's appointment in the morning; so I'll see what he says about this latest development.

Here's the next card. Hopefully tomorrow I can put up a preview of the kit I'll be posting later.

You can download this card here

Valentine Download #3

2008-01-20T21:06:00.000-05:00

Ok, I'm sick of this cold weather! This is Georgia for heaven sake; it's not supposed to get THIS cold in the South, is it?!?

I'm trying to finish up my "My Journey" book over the next week or so. As soon as it's complete, I'll post the pages for you to see.

Here is a sample of card #3 that will be available today. The papers and elements from my cards will be available as a free kit later in the month.

You may go to the download link by clicking the title at the beginning of this post. Please remember that my freebies are for personal use only; and please leave a comment below if you download or have suggestions :)

Have a super week!

Valentine Card Freebie #2

2008-01-19T13:42:00.000-05:00

Happy Sunday everyone!

Here is your second card in my Valentine Freebie series:

Valentine Cards

2008-01-19T12:38:00.000-05:00

I know it's been a long time since I've blogged. I'm sorry. Between home, work, health, kids, dogs and holidays, it's been rather busy around here.

I've been playing in PSP again and some of the freebies from C reative Victorian and created some Valentine cards. I then decided to take the papers and elements from the cards and make a freebie kit and QPs to give away. So check back daily to see what parts I list for download :)

I've returned to work full time now. I'm still struggling to decrease the atrophy that is setting into my temporalis muscle. I'm using electrical stimulation daily and just praying that it helps and prevents further atrophy. I still have the ringing in my ears and have had some hearing loss. I go to a specialist next week to see if he can help with my ears and sinuses. I'll try to do better at keeping y'all posted as I go along.

We're getting snow here in the mountains this week. It's absolutely beautiful! I don't mind when it snows over the weekend, just as long as it's gone by Monday. *LOL*

Here is the first Valentine card that I made. I've saved it as a quick page with a transparent area for your picture. Please remember that my freebies are for personal use only. You can download it here.

Freebie Part 2

2007-11-19T12:40:00.000-05:00

I'm scheduled back with the surgeon tomorrow morning. Hopefully, he'll tell me that all is well and I'm able to return to work at least part-time. I'm getting a tad bit bored here at the house, although I have plenty to do to get ready for the holidays. I just can't spend entire days working on the house!

This afternoon, I'm going to the doctor with my 17 yr old DD. She was at the doc's office last week with a sinus infection and just finished her antibiotics yesterday. Today she called me from school with complaints that she couldn't hear from her left ear, had a sore throat, a horrible headache and an earache. I went to check on her and tried to look inside her ear but couldn't see anything because it looks like it's swollen shut. So I called the doc who said to bring her in after lunch. I'll update y'all later this evening.

I swear, when it rains, it pours! ~sigh~

Here's the Part 2 download for the Festive Fall mini kit. Hope you enjoy it :)

Festive Fall Freebie Part 1

2007-11-15T18:22:00.000-05:00

I returned to the doctor today. He said my ears looked better and all appears to be going well. But there's really no way to be sure about that mastoid bone without another CT. I return to the surgeon again next week for him to check everything and decide when the next CT will be done. So I still don't have any truly definitive answers. But when I do, I'll sure be posting about it!

Download Freebie Part 1 Here

Scrapbook Preview & Freebie

2007-11-13T15:05:00.001-05:00

A friend of ours asked DH to take some pics for her this weekend. She wanted a Fall scrap page that she could put in an 8x10 frame. So this is what I made for her.

I made the papers from overlays over at the Ephemeral Victorian. They have some GREAT templates to make all sorts of papers and elements. And best of all, they're FREE!

I made a quickpage from the above preview. If you like it, you can download it here. Please remember, my freebies are for PERSONAL USE ONLY. And if you download, please leave a comment so I know what y'all like.

I also made a little freebie mini-kit from some of the parts of this QP. The papers are 12x12 in 300 dpi, saved as jpg's. The leaves and vine are saved as png's. Here's a preview:

I'll be posting this in two parts over the next week. So keep checking back for the download links! :)

About the Same

2007-11-01T15:47:00.000-05:00

I'm about the same; I can't say that I'm feeling any better. I ache all over, especially in my jaw, neck, back and chest, as if I have a bad case of the flu in the top half of my body. I'm still taking my antibiotics but don't really feel that they've "kicked in" yet. I'm really struggling to keep a positive attitude and outlook but can become tearful at the drop of a hat this week.

I'm trying really hard to keep myself mentally occupied. I'm playing with my scrapping again. But that's difficult too because I can't stay at the computer more than a half hour or so at a time; my right eye starts throbbing. But thought I'd share with you some of the kits I'm playing with at the moment:
Tina Williams Faith Based Series

Creative Victorian

Yet Another Challenge

2007-10-30T21:52:00.000-05:00

I had to meet with two doctors today to discuss a new finding on the latest CT. I now have "right mastoiditis." To be honest, I'm down in the dumps now. I was really hoping that the worst was over and this journey would be a lighter experience from here on out. Instead, I'm on antibiotics, hoping and praying that these meds treat the inflammation of the mastoid bone before this spreads anywhere else or does any damage.
Please keep me in your prayers. I'm so tired and discouraged at the moment.

I'll try to post some more tomorrow.

Weekend Setback

2007-10-29T11:59:00.000-05:00

Everything was going so well that DH was finally able to return to work this past week. He worked one complete shift and got halfway through a second shift before he had to take off again. I felt so bad, I cried all the way to the hospital.

I returned to the hospital Friday night. After trying to rationalize new symptoms (nausea, all-over headache, rapid hot/cold flashes, muscle pains/aches) all night Thursday and all day Friday, I started running a fever early Friday evening. I took some Advil, started sipping cold Sprites, holding cold towels around my neck, and decided that it was most likely just a bug that the kids brought home from school. And hey, I'm a nurse, I know how to bring down a fever! So I kept trying. (I know, somebody smack me silly!)

Around dinner time, I finally got the fever back down under 100 when Mom showed up to check on me. She went to the closet to get a towel and kept trying to dab my incision line. I brushed her off and asked, "Mom, what in the heck are you doing?" She said she felt so bad for me..."sweating only on the incision like that" and wanted to dry it but "those sweat drops keep popping up all along your head there." DH had called and was talking to one of the girls during this conversation with Mom. The girls were busily repeating it all to DH; so I didn't even have time to call the doc myself.

DH was "on the horn" to the neuro, who instructed DH to go home and retrieve me and immediately deliver me to the ER, before I could even get to the bathroom mirror to check the situation out to see if *I* thought *I* needed to go to the ER. (Checking for skin color, equal pupil size, changes in eyes and face, fearing increased pressure in the brain, infection or that the "sweat drops" might be spinal fluid.)

Needless to say, it was another emotional ride back to the hospital. I HATE ERs, especially on weekends. And I really hated the thought of returning to the hospital, and feared being re-admitted.

But once again I have been blessed and was released Saturday....less than 24 hours this time! WOOHOO!!! But geeeeez, the amount of testing that can be done in less than 4 hours these days is absolutely mind boggling! I've NEVER been, or seen anyone else, moved through an ER so quickly! They had me in a room, machines hooked to both sides of my body, an IV started and hung, blood drawn, meds running and tests started...all in less than 1/2 hour! I had blood drawn and cultures done from both sides of my body, a chest xray, and yet another CT (Shouldn't I OWN that machine by now?!? I swear my butt print is imprinted on that table from being on it so many times in the past month!)

Long story short, (well, not so short at this point! *LOL*) there was no bacterial infection; it was a virus along with my hypothalamus (the thermostat/regulator of the body) trying to recoup. The doc said my weekend CT looked even better than the one from this past Monday. So my head continues to heal.

I really need to write a letter of praise to the hospital for the ER staff. They did a fabulous job and went out of their way to make and keep me comfortable. It really was one of the best ER experiences I've ever had/seen. Even DH mentioned stopping by hospital admin Tuesday when we return so he can talk to them about the experience. DH is in and out of various ERs constantly with his job. He said he watched one of the best MI (heart attack) responses/times he has seen "in forever" while I was in the CT. And he was quite impressed with how they went out of their way to keep me comfortable and him informed this weekend. Overall it was a good experience for both of us. Now, how many times can one say that about an ER visit??

Just Have to Share

2007-10-23T16:21:00.000-05:00

I received the following scrap card from Kimberly Cameron in my email and just had to share with y'all. Isn't the layout beautiful? :)

I have another part of "My Journey" almost done and hope to post it later this evening. So stay tuned! :)
UPDATE: It posted....BELOW this post! So keep scrolling down! ~sigh~

MORE NEWS TO SHARE:
For some reason or other, my baby thought it would make me feel better for us to have "matching hair." So assuming that I would have to have the left side of my head cut short to match the right side of my head, she felt I would end up ultimately with really short hairstyle. So she got all her hair cut off last night! When she walked in I gasped, "OMG! WHERE DID ALL YOUR HAIR GO?!?" She laughed and said, "Well, I got it all cut off to be more like you. Dad's gonna get his cut off too!"
Me: DO WHAT?!?! That didn't make sense....Dad is bald!
Codah: Exactly! I'm not willing to go THAT FAR for ya! But we're all willing to be short with ya!

While I was very touched, I fear that their hair will be all grown out and longer than ever by the time mine grows out long enough to be called "short." *LOL*

The BAD problem

2007-10-23T13:28:00.000-05:00

I got the call on a Friday morning, on my way out the door to work. The source of my "migraine" was BAD, both literally and as an acronym. BAD=Brain Aneurysm Disorder

I went through the entire circle of emotions: disbelief, shock, fear, anger, and a few others that I can't even identify. As a nurse, I knew the bottom line to all this: Aneurysms kill. And too many times they don't even give a notice. I've seen it too many times in my career; it ruptures bringing a single scream of pain, and then drops you dead. And many that live through it have lifelong neuro deficits rendering them permanently disabled.

So what was my main issue with this diagnosis? Well, I'm not afraid of death; I know my soul is sealed in God's Book of Life. But I was angry and upset because I don't have time for death right now. And I don't have the patience for a disability. There is too much that I need to do. And what would happen to my family if I died or was disabled? My DH doesn't even know where I keep the checkbook. I have two precious teenage girls at home who still need me as they grow up into dating, college, and womanhood. I still have so much to teach them and share with them. There's still so much I want them to know.

And then there's my house. Geez, I have three quilts that still are not completed. I still haven't gotten my Spring cleaning done for this year. And OMG, with death or illness, that means people from church and work will be coming to my house and will see all the things I haven't finished! And what about my office? Somebody at work will be using or going through my office; and it's a mess. I have 5 projects on my desk I didn't get finished and a stack of paperwork that I never got filed last month! Geez, what will people think?!?

And with these thoughts came other questions like:
Is my Will up to date? Hmmmm, haven't looked at it in 5 years :(
Are my Advance Directives and Durable Power of Attorney up to date? Nope, haven't looked at those in almost 10 years :(
Geeez, how did I get so far behind?!?

So I made myself a "To Do List" and started working on it. Looking back on it, it's really both sad and funny the thoughts I had at such a time. But I'm learning to prioritize again.

Lesson Learned: Take a day each year to sit down with your spouse and/or family to review for the "what ifs" of life. Update your Will, Advance Directives and Durable Power of Attorney and make sure your doctor has a copy on file. It's important for folks to know what to do, how to do it, where to find things and how you feel about things.

Here are a few of my lists for my family and myself.
The first two I did for my DH. The Love-Hate List was prompted when he kept asking me a dozen questions and complaining that he really didn't know enough about me to take care of me in the hospital. He was worried about things like "I know you like mayo on sandwiches, but would I put mustard on your hamburger? I can't even remember!" I couldn't convince him that I really don't care about having or not having mustard. So I told him I'd make him a list of my 10 most important likes and dislikes. Thus, the following scrap below.

Kit used: "Grandma's Kitchen" from Tina Williams

I gave DH the next scrap page in an attempt to convince him that I KNOW he loves me. I swear, he took this harder than I did. He wasn't even sleeping at night. Instead, he'd stay up all night, standing guard over me, "just in case" I needed something. He was so pitiful! I actually made this page a month or two ago but felt it was so appropriate to give him before this surgery came down. I made a page for each of the girls and grandsons too. But I'll upload and post those later.

"Life's Journey" kit from Cafe Digi and Alpha from RetroDiva's "Naturally" kit.

Here's my "To Do List" scrap, using Teriann Hanks' "Summer Farewell" kit. As you can see, much of what I THOUGHT I needed to do, didn't get done. *LOL*

My Journey

2007-10-21T20:46:00.000-05:00

I've been scrapbooking "My Journey" with this aneurysm and have decided to share it with y'all here. I've learned a lot over the past few weeks. So over the next few weeks, this site will be dedicated to sharing my experiences with all of you.

Here is my cover page, scrapped using a kit by Creative Victorian. This pic was the "before" version of me, the woman I was before learning of my BAD (Brain Aneurysm Disorder) reality that hit me upside my stubborn, hard head. As this woman, I spent the majority of my days working on a career that I truly loved and enjoyed. I spent my time after work and on weekends with my girls, trying to enjoy every moment I had with them before they grow up and away. I've never wanted a lot out of my life; my main prayer has always been to remain healthy enough to work hard and raise my girls at least through college. I've never wanted to be rich or famous, or to have fancy cars or homes...just my health, my family, the ability and opportunity to work hard and play hard and a decent fishing pole with opportunities each year to give it a good work out. That wasn't too much to ask, was it??

I've scrapped several pics over the past week since getting home from the hospital. Some may be rather graphically ugly to some folks. If so, I'm sorry. But this is the reality of my life right now. And sometimes reality is graphically ugly. It brings us to places we would never choose to be, if given a choice. But being in such places provides us opportunities for growth and new knowledge and empathy for others, and sometimes even new understanding and acceptance of ourselves. And right now, I'm struggling to accept myself as is...less than perfect, human and mortal. This experience has brought out both the best and worst of me, dependent upon which day to which I'm referring and my mood of the day.

Please feel free to join me in My Journey, the journey that began with a headache at work one day and ended up two months later in an emergency major surgery into the middle of my brain, a surgery that will forever change both my life and my outlook on life. Hopefully, I'll be able to share something that may touch someone else's life, or even save a life.

Post Surgery Update

2007-10-12T20:14:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm back home again after being in the hospital for almost a week recovering from a craniotomy to remove the aneurysm from the artery in my brain. What an experience!!!

I'm blessed to have no apparent neuro deficits after the surgery, which I'm told is a rare blessing. But being unable to lift, push, pull, bend, strain, etc is posing quite a challenge for me. I'm also trying to learn to tie scarves and headbands since without them, I won't be able to go out into public without scaring small children and some adults. My face and head are pretty wicked looking at the moment.

I'll keep y'all posted and updated as I get some freedom along the way. I may even scrap this experience since some of the girls' friends say I have the "kewlest Halloween look" going on! *LOL*

In the interim, I just wanted to let y'all know that the surgery went well and that I'm back home again.

Emotional Roller Coaster

2007-09-29T21:02:00.000-05:00

I cried myself to sleep last night, but finally slept. I woke up around 4am to go to the bathroom and found DH sitting next to the bed, just watching me. He had been up all night long, "watching to make sure you were alright", as he explained it. Today, he was edgy. In fact, he was worse than a pregnant woman waiting for labor with an overactive nesting instinct. I'm worried about him.

Migraine Mystery: solved but not resolved

2007-09-28T18:13:00.000-05:00

It has been a somewhat emotional day around here. My OB-GYN referred me to a neurologist. Not just any neurologist, he insisted on this one particular neuro who last I heard wasn't even accepting new patients. But my OB-GYN somehow got me into see him.

My new neurologist ordered an angiogram, that I had done yesterday afternoon. I wondered yesterday if something was wrong. As the dye goes into your system, you can feel it moving throughout your body...a really hot, flushed feeling with a metallic taste and smell. I felt it only on the right side of my body, tasted it on only the left side of my mouth and felt it only on the left side of my head. Then the test was done. I questioned, "Are you sure that dye infused completely?" They assured me it did.
I left thinking, "Wow! That was really bizarre."

This morning, the neurologist called the house and asked to review my schedule with him so that he could get me scheduled with a neuro surgeon next week. Yesterday's test showed an aneurysm on my anterior communicating artery. (the front half of the circular blood vessel, circulating between the two sides of the brain) It has not ruptured, thank God, but is bulging and causing pressure in my head. They need to get it repaired before it ruptures.

Considering I've been walking around and working with this thing for a couple of months, we decided to schedule for Tuesday morning.
I needed some time to tie up some loose ends at home and sit down to discuss with my family before such an event. At this point, we are not sure if I will be a candidate coiling or if they will need to go in and clip it. We'll hopefully know Tuesday. That decision will determine whether I will remain here or need to have my treatment moved to Emory University in Atlanta.

Needless to say, I've been on an emotional roller coaster all day today. Please keep me and my family in your prayers.

Return from Gone Fishing

2007-09-25T20:03:00.000-05:00

Well, we're back from our fishing trip. We had a good time, despite the weather changing every few hours over the entire weekend. Here are some pics I scrapped from the weekend, using Tina Williams GONE FISHING KIT that is on sale this week! :)

Template by Ria Rooks

Template by Teriann Hanks, rusty chain by Senati

See how serious Oyster Happy Hour is to these girls?!?! *LOL*

Template & Lanterns by Senati

Gone Fishing

2007-09-19T12:03:00.001-05:00

I'm off to the Gulf to do some fishing. I may post while gone if we have a rainy day. If not, I'll update y'all when I return! :)

TGISaturday

2007-09-08T10:54:00.000-05:00

I'm SO glad it's the weekend! Things at work have been SO chaotic and stressful. It's everything I can do to get through the week lately.

I've had no headache since my last post. I still have some swelling in my left temple; and we still don't know why. I'm going to take some time off mid-month and head down to the gulf for a few days. When I return that Monday, I'll see a neurologist. Maybe he can determine what's going on?

In the interim, I'm trying to do a better job at managing my home. The house has gotten completely out of control. I don't know where in the heck all this STUFF comes from. I think we have elves who think they are doing me a favor by creating more stuff and duplicating other things during the night. With school back in full gear, we're all on the run, giving those little elves even more opportunity to create havoc in the house.

I started cleaning out last week and stacking boxes in the living room to go to a yard sale and/or the thrift store. That plan didn't go over well with DH, who feels the living room should remain clean at all times since it's the main room of the house. I, on the other hand, feel that the LR is the most central area of the house and the most efficient to collect and stack while cleaning. I've TRIED explaining to DH that he CAN ignore it for a week or so until I can get it all finished; afterall, it's just ONE room. He made it 3 days before he announced "I can't stand it anymore!" and started moving everything around again. My boxes are again all over the house; and I'm ready to strangle him!

Neither of us like the house cluttered or messy. But on the other hand, our cleaning syles are very different. These two facts can create some substantial tension during such busy, hectic times. Although much better now than during the first few years of our marriage, we still can't seem to "come together" on this topic. I wonder if there are any therapists out there who specialize at cleaning counseling? We may need it sometime! *LOL*

In the evenings, while the girls are doing homework and settling in for the night, I've been working on a scrapped Faithbook for my grandson. You can check out the pages I've finished thus far by right-clicking the title on this post, and opening a new window.

An Evening in the Hospital

2007-08-30T20:28:00.000-05:00

I've now been several days without a migraine. The only thing that lingered, as of this morning, was the ringing in my ears and a slight headache around my left ear. I did my time on the traction this morning and went on to work.

At lunchtime, an RN friend of mine asked, "Are you going back to the doctor today?" I told her no, I'm done for the week. She commented that maybe I should call the doctor and get checked because while we were sitting at lunch, my left temple and cheek started swelling up and "You now have a substantial sized knot running along your cheekbone back into your hairline." I got up and went to the bathroom to look into a mirror and about fainted!

I had grown what looked like an extra thumb across my cheekbone; and my temple looked like a small plum had crawled under my skin.
So my friend drove me back to get my car, while I was on my cell calling the doctor. I was told it sounded like temporal arteritis and to get into the office and get it checked.

I got in my car and went straight to the doctor's office. By the time I got there, my head was pounding again and my face was swelling up around my left eye. I had tried to call the office back to tell them I was enroute and getting worse. But their danged "at lunch" message was on; and I couldn't get past the front desk. I was an emotional wreck by the time I got into the office.

I got in there to be told by the wicked little receptionist that I didn't have an appointment.
Me: I don't care. I called earlier and was told to come right in.
WWW(Wicked Witch of the West): Well, you don't have an appointment and can't get to you today. You'll have to come back tomorrow.
Me: LOOK AT MY FACE! Do you see this temple?!? This is NOT a good sign! Now go tell the doc or his nurse that I'm here. I've already talked to them. They knew I was coming.
WWW: You'll have to come back tomorrow. They're already behind today. And there is nothing written on your chart about you coming in. You should have called.
Me: I DID CALL! I even tried to call back again while I was driving but your...
WWW: No, you did NOT call because this phone hasn't rang in the past half hour.
Me: I KNOW! Because you put the stupid thing on the lunch message after I talked to the nurse the first time!
WWW: Would you like me to try to schedule you in tomorrow or not?
Me: NO! I'll drive myself to the ER and will bill YOU for it! Tomorrow, the only reason I'll be back is to pick up my records to change doctors and to explain to my doctor why YOU have just cost him my business!

I left the office FUMING and drove myself across the street to the ER where a nurse immediately got me in with a gorgeous young doc who immediately commented, "WOW! Looks like you have a bad case of temporal arteritis there; sit down here and let's get on this."
They called for STAT labs, drew enough blood to do a transfusion, and had me lie down to await the results. The doc cautioned me with "We may need a rheumatologist and neurologist on this....may have to start some meds here.....gotta get that swelling down....that's soft tissue, not fluid...gotta watch your eyes...are you having any visual changes, blah, blah, blah."
I figured all that. And I watched my eyes in my rearview mirror the entire drive from work. I KNOW what this COULD mean. But I expected to hear all this from MY FP doctor who I couldn't even get close to because of the WWW!

Then I started thinking again, and questioned the ER doc....
"Hey, are you checking for enzymes?"
Doc: Yes, we're on it.
Me: What about my Sed rate?
Doc: Got it
Me: Do you think maybe my RDW vs MCV ratio might...
Doc: Stop worrying! We're checking it
Me: What about RNA? If it's my immune system, maybe my WBCs....
Doc: Yes, I KNOW. We're testing it.
Me: Oh. Ok. I guess you'll know when the labs come back?
Doc: Yes, that's usually when we find out *LOL*
Me: But then to know for sure, that means the neuro will want to biopsy the artery, won't he? Should I call my husband?
Doc: He might. But will you PLEASE stop worrying?!?
Me: You don't understand; I'm never sick! I'm a clutz; I trip, fall, run into doors, get hit by drunk drivers, need stitches, need xrays. But I'm never SICK! This last month of doctors, tests, more doctors, more tests, etc is about to send me over the edge!

(OK, so I'm not the most patient patient in the world! ~sigh~)
I know that poor man (the ER doc) must have dropped to his knees to thank God I was gone when I left!

But he remained very patient and kind on the outside, regardless of the frustration he must have been feeling on the inside. And he was honest about my results. He sat down next to me, went over every single test and then said, "I don't understand this and really have no idea why your face is swelling. Your vital signs, blood tests, etc, show you to be a perfectly healthy young woman with no abnormalities nor irregularities on any test we've run."
He even gave me a copy of my tests to check them myself. I'm a smoker; and my O2 Sat was 99%! I was madder than fire when I got to the ER and my BP was only 116/70, respirations 16 and heart rate 80! (And that's after literally stomping up the hill from my car and into the ER!) My MRI and CT are perfectly normal.

But my left cheek/eye/temple area still looks deformed!
The only thing I could get out of my mouth was, "Are you SURE these are MY test results?!? My smoking and temper alone should have done more damage than THIS! OMG! This looks like I'm 25 again!"

Anyways, I was sent home with orders for more anti-inflamatories for the swelling and yet another referral for another specialist, "just in case."

Maybe my "just in case" doctor can figure out what in the heck is going on?!? In the interim, I wait...again! But tomorrow morning I'm seriously going to pull our records and move them back to my previous doctor who moved about a year ago. We may have to drive an extra half hour. But I won't be given the run around that I've gotten today.

Just another update

2007-08-24T23:52:00.000-05:00

WOW! What a week! I haven't had a week like this in years. There was lots of chaos at work. And on the way home one evening, an hysterical woman ran out in front of my car. I ran off the road to avoid hitting her only to find that she was screaming about an overturned vehicle and trapped woman up ahead of us. I, along with another ER nurse on his way to work, pulled the woman from the van and had a heck of a time with the scene while waiting for what seemed like forever for EMS and police to arrive.

And I'm supposed to avoid stress?!?! They could lock me in a room so stress couldn't find me and the building would catch on fire! I swear, trauma and chaos follows me almost as closely as Murphy's Law! ~sigh~

The freedom from my headache lasted until mid-morning on Wednesday. I slept SO GOOD Tuesday night after I finally fell asleep!! I ended up taking a benadryl capsule to try to knock the edge off the tinnitis because the ringing just doesn't seem to want to give! But once I fell asleep, I slept like a baby! :)

When the headache returned, it returned for about 24 hrs as a true headache, rather than a migraine. I can deal with that. But then the following night, the intensity started rising again. And I ended up getting up 4 times during the night to run to the bathroom for all the typical stomach flu symptoms. I really don't know if these symptoms were connected to the migraine, or just me coming down with a virus? But I go back to the chiropractor this morning. So I'm hoping I can get some relief at least for the rest of the weekend because I really need the rest! Next week, I have 2 doctors appointments and a couple of PT sessions. Hopefully, they won't make my neck sore.

I dropped by my dermatologist's office this week for my follow-up and have now been once again released from her care, for the THIRD flipping time this year! The biopsy came back negative for cancer. And this time it wasn't pre-cancer nor a mole. The biopsy showed a virus! I can't remember the name of it and had never heard of it before; but she said it's similar to a wart and nothing to worry about. I still have the "zapped" places that are still scaling and not completely healed yet, and had to have another "zapping" done, but she said I was good to go for one year unless I noticed anything new that concerned me before then :)

Work was a nightmare this week. Before it was over, I don't know who was in worse shape, the clients or the staff. We're all drained and exhausted! I don't think I had a single morning this week that my phones didn't start ringing before 7am; and the earliest I could get out of the building was around 7pm....until today. I packed it up and left at 4pm today because I couldn't take any more, couldn't even see straight, seriously! Around 3pm, everything turned blurry, I couldn't concentrate nor focus physically or emotionally. I felt like a zombie walking around my office trying to figure out what I was doing and where I should start next. I felt like I had been working several 20 hour shifts back to back and was ready to collapse.

I'm off to my appointment. I'll let y'all know how it goes.

Some improvements again today! :)

2007-08-21T19:24:00.000-05:00

I returned to the chiropractor today and whined about how the migraine had let up for 5 hours only to return with a fury. The tinnitis (ringing in my ears) has increased by 2 octaves and is about to drive me insane! He assures me that with time, the migraine will let up for longer periods of time. And with more time, he states the traction and PT will help prevent it from returning. The tinnitis....well, sometimes he can eliminate that with the migraine. If not, I may have to see an ENT.

He popped me and cracked me, then hooked me up on more electrical stim with alternating heat/ice. I really don't understand this popping and cracking stuff that chiropractors do, but I have to give this guy credit.....he's a master! He didn't eliminate the tinnitis; but he did immediately bring it down a couple of octaves! And the migraine....well, it let up around 1030 this morning and as of 9pm tonight has still not returned!!! WOOO HOOO!!!!

I know, I KNOW! He warned me that it will wax and wane for a while and that I can NOT stop my exercises, traction or this stupid therapeutic pillow for several weeks. (Then of course, he's going to tell me that I need to do another dozen exercises to work on the rest of me. But I can live with that, just as long as this migraine goes away!)

But, I just wanted y'all to know:

I HAVE NO HEADACHE TONIGHT!!!! ***doing the happy dance***

Migraine Day 27 and Day 1 too?

2007-08-18T16:30:00.000-05:00

WOW! This morning I woke up to Day 27 of the Migraine from Hell. I got up and dressed, checked my email, drank a couple of cups of coffee and headed off to yet another appointment. My orthopod had said that I could continue with my chiropractor, who was holding off any heavy-duty chiropractic until the MRI results returned. I walked in this morning with my MRI CD in hand and said "Let's do it...whatever, just get rid of this pain!" He checked my MRI and finally worked on my C1/C2 area. OMG!

First off, I have always been leery of chiropractors. The only reason I went to this one was because I was desperate....too much pain for too long and meds and physicians that couldn't eliminate it. The only reason I returned was for a similar reason; the migraine pain had moved into my left shoulder. He popped and cracked a few places, put me on elect stim, and VOILA, no more shoulder pain! But he wouldn't touch my upper neck without a release from the orthopod. So today was the day.

The messing around he did with the upper neck area wasn't comfortable, but it did seem to increase the range of motion in my neck. He warned me that "This is gonna hurt worse later because the left side of your neck feels like a steel rod." He then did more elect stim and ice/heat to my neck. I left there with NO pain whatsoever in my neck! Again on the way out, he warned me not to get my hopes up too high just yet because I'd be sore and that further treatment would be needed.

About 2pm this afternoon, the headache broke! For the first time in 27 days, I was pain-free! It felt SO GOOD...at least while it lasted. ~sigh~ I had a great 5 hours of relief until about 7pm. Then it came back :( I'm hoping this one doesn't last as long.

So does this remain day 27 of the current migraine or is it day 1 of a new migraine? Or is this just the soreness he warned me about kicking in?

MRI results are back! :)

2007-08-15T20:12:00.000-05:00

I had my MRI Monday morning. What an experience!! I was blessed to have been tested in an "open MRI", so wasn't really claustrophobic. I was doing fine with it until the final moment when the tech did that last reminder:
"The knocking noise will now begin. Just relax, and remember do NOT move or we'll have to reschedule you and start over again. And most importantly, do not move your head, face, nor mouth."

The knocking started; this wasn't so bad. These machines are not half as noisy as the ones years ago. About 2 minutes into the test, I had a cramp in my big toe. Then my cheek starting itching. Then I felt an itch on my nose and in my ear. So I started thinking to myself:
"Don't move! I don't want to do this all over again. That's not really an itch. It's just all in my imagination. That toe isn't going to fall off during this test...just ignore it. BE STILL!"

I was doing pretty well with self-talk and self-soothing exercises until I felt a cough coming on. Then I had to get a little more serious with myself:
"OK, you are on a beach. There is a cool breeze blowing across your face. Just breathe. Don't waste that wonderful salty air by coughing. You're fine. You don't really need to cough. Suck it up and get over it! And do NOT move!"

Then I felt like I needed to sneeze. And my left eye start twitching. Then I heard the tech's voice across the speaker, "Hang in there and don't move. We're about halfway finished. Just a few more minutes."
But the sneeze-sensation was causing my nose to twitch in perfect rhythm with my eye. I swear, it felt like my entire face was going into convulsions!
So I had to REALLY come down on myself:
"STOP IT RIGHT THERE! DO NOT SNEEZE! You don't need to sneeze! Eyes, stop moving! Nose, cut that crap out! Face, I swear I'll slap ya silly when I get outta this thing if you dare twitch one more time! MY BRAIN IS IN CONTROL HERE! Brain, you tell 'em to ignore that sensation and stop twitching! C'mon now, send that message ASAP to the face!"

Then the machine stopped and the tech said, "Ok, you're finished. You did great!"

If she only knew! ~sigh~

Why is it that I can sit perfectly still until told "Don't move" and then everything on my body decides to get figity?!?!

I went back today to get the results. I have really been dreading this, not as much from fear of something being wrong, but more of a fear of total humiliation that he might say, "Geez, we don't know what's wrong with your brain and neck. This is the most bizarre test I've ever seen. Didn't they tell you to be still during this test? It looks as if you were dancing around on the table. We'll have to do it all over again!"

So I walked in this morning, took a deep breath, and waited for the word. And of course, he couldn't come in and immediately give me an answer. No, that would have been too easy. He waited, looked over the report, then the pics, read the chart, (took what felt like 30 minutes!) and then finally said:
"Everything looks great. We found nothing wrong that would require surgical or invasive intervention. In fact, we found nothing to report on the test, not even arthritis. You have a migraine that appears to be the result of stress, a little weakness in a muscle or two, and the effects of not taking care of yourself. We're recommending physical therapy and some traction for 6 weeks. I'm releasing you because you're in good hands with Dr. C and will be just fine. Continue taking the anti-inflamatories and see Dr. C again on Saturday."

So maybe that talk I had with my brain and face helped afterall?!? *LOL*

I'll let y'all know what this "physical therapy and traction" turns out to be. The only thing I could think of this afternoon was, "What are they going to do now? Hang me upside down?" I hope not; I don't need all the blood rushing to my brain. I'm just now getting the darned thing trained to listen to me! :)

Cranky this morning

2007-08-11T07:02:00.000-05:00

I know I should be thankful. And I am. I'm thankful that my atlas has been diagnosed as NOT broken. The headache hasn't been in the top of my head for days now. For that I'm thankful. But the pain still remains like a bad toothache in the base of my skull, running around to my left ear and left cheek bone. What's causing this pain? I'm now sleeping well through most of the night. For that I'm thankful. But I'm still waking up between 5am and 6am feeling the pulsating pain beginning to rev up each morning. By 7am, I just want to rip my head off, and anybody else's who gets in my way or talks too loudly, regardless of which meds I start my day with.

I'm so very tired of treating symptoms. I want to treat the source of the problem! I just wish they could tell me what that is. And once they're able to do that, I just want them to tell me what I need to do to make it stop!

I started a diary about 2 weeks ago, logging what I eat, times the pain is worse or better, weather, sleep patterns, meds, etc. I was reviewing it this morning looking for trends. So far, nothing is popping out at me. I can find nothing remotely close to a trend. In fact, it's quite the opposite. If I try to graph any of this on an excel spreadsheet, the graph is all over the place!
It just doesn't make any sense!

As if all this isn't bad enough, I now have 3 stitches in my right shoulder. When I went in for my regular dermatologist check Thursday afternoon, she found a "nodule" that she said "I don't feel good about that one; let's remove that and get a biopsy." She also "zapped" 5 other places with the "air zapper" as my mother calls it. (It's really a freezing technique, done by spraying liquid nitrogen, to remove or prevent a mole or other skin condition from growing.) Usually, I'm sensitive to the "zapper" and hate the cold, stinging sensation it leaves. All this headache pain must have toughened me up or made me immune to other pain because with 5 places zapped, and one of them requiring 3 pretty long zaps, I never even flinched.

During that last one, (the extra long zaps), I even looked down and thought to myself, "Wow, that one should be hurting by now!" as she apologized with, "I'm sorry. I know this is uncomfortable. Just hang in there a few more minutes." I didn't even feel it! She apologized again during the biopsy, stating she had to cut deeper than anticipated to get it out. I never felt uncomfortable. In fact, I really can't recall feeling anything at all. Maybe she's just a great doctor!?! :)

I was to go back next week to have the stitches removed. But the appointments with her were conflicting with appointments for my head. They started scrambling around to get me in with her partner for the removal of the stitches, and I asked, "Can't I just take these out myself next week and run by for you to check me the following week? I'm really tired of seeing so many different doctors. I swear I'm developing an allergy to anybody with the letters MD or DO in their names." She chuckled and said, "Well, we don't want that. So yes, you may remove them yourself on Thursday or Friday. But drop by the middle of the next week for me to check it."

So that's the plan. And the plan for this morning is to see the Chirpractor and see if he can do something with my neck to get it aligned. Maybe that will help alleviate the pain?

I'll keep y'all posted. Thanks for all the thoughts, prayers and emails. I really do appreciate y'all! :)

Off to see the wizard

2007-08-09T07:48:00.000-05:00

Well, not quite the "wizard" but yet another doctor. I have a follup-up with one and an assessment by another this afternoon. I slept better last night once I fell asleep. Maybe I was just exhausted? But I slept from around midnight until 6am without waking up. So I'm feeling "clearer" today.

School has been open for less than a week; and already we have our first casualty. Codah came home yesterday with complaints that her new clarinet, which we just bought last year to replace the one she inherited 5 yrs ago from her older sister, has a chipped mouthpiece. I told her "Awww, it's ok sweetie. We'll get you a new one. It's not like you broke the clarinet. I'm sure we can pick up a mouthpiece inexpensively somewhere."

Geeez, was I ever wrong! We looked online last night, and can't find the one she needs for less than $100! HOLY COW! I'll call the music store down by my office later this morning and see what they want for one.

Katelyn successfully had her schedule changed yesterday...by herself without our help! This is a BIG accomplishment! Katelyn has always, since birth, HATED crowds. So large classrooms with more than 15 or so kids really freak her out. There were 20+ kids in one of her classes. She calmly researched the situation and found that the same class, earlier in the morning had only 10 students in it. So she went to the counselor, explained the situation, and swapped out her afternoon class for an earlier morning class. Then she came home and told us afterwards! No calling us from school in a panic. No self-defeating complaints. I'm so proud of her! :)

Holding Steady

2007-08-07T19:38:00.000-05:00

No new news today. I slept without meds last night; but it was becoming a real challenge around 5am when the pain started getting the best of me. It wasn't my entire head though, just from the base of my skull around and into my left ear. I finally got up and took a couple of Advil at 6am. That held me over until mid-afternoon.

The girls' first day of school was today. So far so good. Katelyn is still aggravated that she has to take yet another year of foreign language and complains that languages other than English shouldn't be mandatory for college. Hopefully, this will be her last year of French; and she can stop belly-aching about it.

Well, I must go fill out the mounds and mounds of school "parent signature needed" paperwork. Y'all have a great evening while I'm sitting here blistering my fingers with all these forms to be signed! *LOL*

Back where we started?

2007-08-06T21:34:00.001-05:00

I slept through the night last night! It was the first time in over 14 nights. I woke up this morning with a headache, but not the severe migraine that I've had for the past couple of weeks. My neck and left shoulder were stiff and sore, but not pounding like usual. This was quite a blessing! So I skipped my meds this morning! (I know, I'm a glutten for punishment!)

My mother insisted on going to this appointment with me. She said she was sure everything would be ok because she had been praying all weekend. She said she needed to go with me; she felt sure of it. She said "Honey, I'm feeling good about this because it's not your time yet. God isn't finished with you yet. I feel like He needed to use you for something and needed your full attention; but He doesn't have time for you to really be down right now. So your doctors need to hurry this along."

Me: Ok Mom, you can go with me. But PLEASE just sit there and listen; and don't start rushing the docs, ok?

So we went for more tests together this morning. Then we went to see the orthopod in the afternoon together; he did more xrays. He said he couldn't find any fractures on his xrays today. Mom jumped up out of her chair and sighed "Praise the Lord!"
So I got up and looked myself. That danged atlas looked like it was back in place, right where it belonged. The ortho commented, "I'm not really sure what the other doctor thought he saw on his xrays, but these look ok....see the atlas is this top bone right here..." as he pointed at the C1 vertebra.

I stopped him mid-sentence and pointed myself:
Me: I KNOW which vertebra is the atlas! That one right there (pointing to C1) that was NOT there Friday and Saturday. I saw it with my own eyes on 4 different films and angles! He redid the xrays twice. My husband went back in with me again Saturday to see for himself. That bone was over THERE (pointing again) over the weekend; it was NOT HERE. (pointing back at my now normal looking atlas)

Orthopod: Well, it looks fine now. You may have a migraine? I'll send these xrays off to a radiologist in Atlanta to see what he thinks.

Me: That's what the other doc was doing. That's what landed me here. So now what?

He ordered an MRI for next week, just to be safe. If that, along with the radiology report, comes back ok, then I'll be released from all these specialists; and they'll go back to treating me for a migraine.

I didn't take my medicine this morning. I figured if the headache was tolerable, I'd just wait it out to see if I could get further than 3 hours out between doses today.
(Have I ever told you that I HATE taking meds and am the world's worst patient when it comes to meds?) For the past 14 days, it's been a struggle to hold off much past 2 hours. It's now bedtime; and I haven't taken any meds all day. I can still feel it, but it's bearable for the first time in two weeks. So I'm going to try sleeping without meds tonight and see if I can sleep through the night without them. If so, I think the worst is over; and Mom was right...there's just no other explanation for the past few days.

A few more updates from an emotional day

2007-08-04T19:34:00.000-05:00

I didn't sleep well at all last night. I TRIED what he told me to do, propping up all the pillows and keeping my chin forward. Then I couldn't fall asleep. When I finally did, I pushed all the pillows off and woke up crying in pain around 2:30pm (just like clockwork) and found myself laying on my left side with my arm tucked up under my head. That explains the pain worsening at night. I'm putting myself in the worst possible position in my sleep, even when I prop myself up and block myself in with pillows. :(

I returned for my appointment this morning to find that he had called an ortho surgeon for consultation, in addition to the neuro & MRI. After some discussion and better description of the "blow" that would have had to occur to cause this kind of injury, we determined that I most likely did it on our front deck last year when I fell up the stairs, chin first. He described it to a tee.....head-on heavy weight, blunt force into the chin or jaw area, quick snap of the head backwards, pain in the left ear/jaw area accompanied by a crack or popping noise, probably heard on the left side of the head.

Yep, that's exactly what happened that day!

Doc: "Do you remember hearing a pop or crack at that time?"

Me: Yes, but I had already given myself a black eye on the bathroom door a few days before, and cut my foot up by slipping at the pool, and was on my way to Codah's recital and was running late. I tripped coming up the stairs and fell chin first into the next level of decking. I remember hearing a pop in my left ear, feeling excruciating pain in my jaw, and thinking "Great, now I've jammed my jaw through my eardrum!" But then I could hear from my left ear and thought, "Well, I must not have damaged my ear because I'm still able to hear." It never occurred to me that I might have broken my neck!

Doc: Did you go to the ER to get an xray?

Me: No, I was late to my DD's recital. I went on to that and then came home and took some ibuprofen. I did go to my doctor and dentist a few days later. But I didn't think to tell either of them about any noises I heard during the fall. The dentist xrayed my jaw. They messed around with my jaw and checked my ears and said all looked ok. So I never thought anything else about it.

He didn't even have to say the next one, but he did:
"You should have gone immediately to the ER that night."
That realization had already hit me square in the head.

Anyways, for today, he hooked me up to some electrical stimulation, along with some ice/massage therapy to try to ease the pain. It seems to have worked fairly well on my head. I can't honestly say I still have a headache. It's more like a "fullness" around my ears. The ringing in my ears remains. But the pain in my neck and left temple, along that imaginary line, went from a scale of 8/10 to 4/10 and held steady for almost 6 hours today! Those few hours are the best I've felt in a few weeks now! :)

DH is pretty freaked out. In fact, he's more than freaked...he's impossible right now! He gave the doc the third degree today with a slew of questions, concerns, fears and angst. He has somehow gotten himself on this guilt trip and rants "I should have MADE you go to the ER that night! I KNEW better! I should have taken you myself! Don't you realize that only 50% of people with this injury even survive the blow?!? I see this stuff at work....." (blah, blah, blah, blah)

Me: I don't want to hear this! I KNOW what could have happened! I don't need you reminding me!
DH: Well, I'm scared!
Me: And you think *I* am NOT?!?!
DH: What if you fall or get bumped in the head before this gets fixed?!? Do you realize what can happen?!?

I finally lost it while he was ranting and yelled "SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP! I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ANYTHING ELSE ABOUT THIS!" The doc, (God bless his soul and patience level) finally, and sternly, cautioned DH with, "We can all see what happened that night and know what COULD have happened. And she's obviously aware of the risks and challenges. But she's been stable this long and walking around and working like this. So let's just assume that she's hard-headed enough to stay stable while we work through this. There's no sense in worrying about what MIGHT happen at this point. What's done is done. Now, let's just move on from here. It's completely possible, in light of the fact that nothing worse has happened up to this point, that we will get this bone stabilized without further trauma. But you two need to stop beating up on yourselves."

We calmed down for a bit until DH started insisting on sitting next to me and rubbing my back while I was on the machine....and he kept talking. And I kept turning over to tell him to stop. The doc finally said to DH, "I'll make you a deal. You can sit here with her IF you promise NOT to open your mouth. But IF you DO say ONE word while she's on this machine, you're out in the hall for the rest of the day!"

He finally got quiet and stayed quiet...at least until the machine turned off. Then he jumped up and said, "Don't worry honey, I'll go get the doctor" and went running out of the room. I wasn't worried about being on the machine. But apparently he was? Or maybe it was just about to kill him to be quiet that long?!? *LOL*

Monday morning I go to see the ortho surgeon and for a neuro consult. DH now insists on going with me. He says he "needs to" take care of me since he didn't MAKE me go to the hospital the night I fell. I've tried explaining to him at least a dozen times that he couldn't (nor can he) MAKE me do anything. If I had been lying there incapacitated, yes, I would expect him to take me to a hospital. But when I am able to stand up and say, "I feel like I'm ok", then it's not HIS responsibility to do anything except just "be there" for me.

But I don't think "Mr. Fix It" is able to do just that. He has to be doing something. So does anybody out there have anything that he can do that will keep him busy until I get through this mess?

The Source of my Migraine

2007-08-03T18:18:00.000-05:00

The source of my migraine is now the source of nausea and stress. I now feel SICK! My stomach is churning. My nerves are shot. And my emotions finally caught up with me this afternoon. I just want to lay in the floor and cry!

After 11 straight days with a migraine and a swollen left cheekbone, multiple medications that wouldn't touch it, CT scans that appear normal, multiple trips to the hospital and physician, and still no answers, I finally made an appointment with a local chiropractor.

I went this afternoon and starting immediately venting to the poor guy:
As a nurse, I'm not even sure I believe in chiropractic. But I do know that attempts at treating the symptoms have been futile and have made me irritable, cranky and impatient. I'm sick and tired of the pain, sick and tired of not knowing what's causing it, and sick and tired of meds. I don't do meds well, never have, don't want to take them and usually don't need them. I've taken more meds in the past 2-3 wks than I've taken in my entire life.

Now listen to me carefully. I do NOT want any more meds, nor any more checks on my head, my brain or anything else up here. It seems to be fine outside of hurting like heck. I made a dentist appt for Monday morning to check for TMJ; that may be it or not. But there is a direct correlation between the intensity of the pain and an imaginary line between the base of my skull to my left ear, to my left cheekbone and then behind my left eye, where a ballping hammer sits, pounding away at my brain in a rhythm that comes and goes between 3/4 time and 7/8 time throughout my day, being most rapid between 2am and 3am, waking me up every single solitary night. I can even HEAR the pounding behind my left eye with my left ear in the middle of the night! Either fix this imaginary line and the hammer I feel and hear, which appears to me to be the source of this pain, or tell me I'm delusional so I can get a psychiatrist! I can't take this anymore!"

Dr. C: Well, since you've apparently ruled out anything in the head but pain, can we try an xray of your neck?
Me: Sure.

He took the xray. The assistant looked at it, had a bizarre look on her face, excused herself and then went to get the doc again. The doc comes in, looks at the xray, looks at me and says, "OMG, you are in some serious pain, aren't you?"
Me: Yeah, that's what I've been saying for a couple of weeks now. Why, what does it show?
Doc: Well, I'm sure it's a shadow or the machine malfunctioning. No reason to worry. We're just going to take a few more images.
Me: Ok (starting to pray, Dear God, please let this be a mistake; whatever it is that they're seeing is starting to make my gut churn...please let it be a mistake.)

More xrays....with head up, chin down, sideways, forward, backwards, with mouth open, mouth shut, etc.

The assistant went back to the darkroom. She wouldn't look at me when she came out of it.

The doc went in and with a somber face finally looked over at me and said, "I don't want to alarm you, but we're not going to be able to treat you here today; but we're going to get a specialist to look over this. So let's not get alarmed, ok? I want you to stay calm and step over here and let me explain what I'm seeing here."

My stomach churned and turned while my head spun around in circles. (Or at least that's what I FELT my body doing. I just KNEW I was going to be sick before I ever made those 6 steps over to that xray light.)

Before he ever even opened his mouth or moved his pen to point to the xray, I looked up at it and my mind started racing. I thought, "NO WAY! There's been a mistake! This can't be! I wouldn't be standing here talking to you about this if that xray was correct! I wouldn't have been at work today or yesterday or for the past few weeks if that xray was really MY neck! I know it hurts to move my head; but dang it, I can still move it! This can't be!"

Then the doc interrupted my thoughts with "Have you had a recent trauma, a severe blow to the head, anything that might have broken your neck right here?" as he pointed to where my atlas (the first cervical vertebra that the skull rotates and moves on) was SUPPOSED to be.

It was GONE! The danged thing was missing! There's a hole there where it SHOULD be! Then he showed me the lateral (from the side) xray with my head tilted downwards. There it was, my little atlas bone, broken off and sitting up there at the back of my head, against the base of my skull. My neck is broken! The atlas looks broken in half, has moved and is sitting where there isn't SUPPOSED to be a bone!

I don't know how I did it or when. I don't even know what we're going to do about it. The chiropractor wants to call in a specialist and wants to see me again tomorrow morning. I THINK he said something about a neuro consult and an MRI. But I'm not really sure because I did exactly what he told me NOT to do...I got alarmed. My thoughts were racing. Images of all the past spinal cord patients I've ever had when working neuro trauma soared through my mind. Cranial nerves, transmittors, motor function, sensory functions, risks, side effects, brain stems, halos, fusions, rods, screws..........it was all jumbling up in my head at warp speeds.

I found myself in the car, calling my DH to tell him, "I have to come back tomorrow."
DH: So soon? Why?
Me: I don't know? Because this appointment card says so?

It took me several seconds to gather my thoughts enough to even tell him how the xray looked. The rest of the afternoon has become a blur.

I'll try to update y'all tomorrow after the appointment. Until then, will y'all please keep me in your prayers?

((((((hugs))))))

My First Crush

2007-07-29T15:52:00.000-05:00

Just sharing a layout I did this afternoon using a kit by Tina Williams and a picture of one of the best looking men in the universe :)

Migraine Update

2007-07-28T17:21:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been almost a week and still no definite source for this pain. They've changed my meds another three times. I've had so many meds at this point that I now have a constant ringing in my ears. (I know, I know, watch for ototoxicity! But I don't think that's it since the ringing is 5x louder on my left side. If I'm going toxic, then I'm doing it faster on my painful side!) The CT came back as "head normal." Well, we all know that if the CT says MY head is normal at any given time, then the CT machine is broken! *LOL*

My left cheek is swollen under my left eye, about the size of a ping pong ball. I can't feel any fluid in it and can't determine what in the heck is causing swelling just in that one area? Maybe my sinuses? Maybe a week's worth of pressure and pain in the area?
Who knows?!? The really weird thing about it is that it LOOKS swollen, but doesn't feel swollen. If I run my fingers across it, it doesn't feel tender nor does the area feel tight like edema. It feels like my cheek bone moved and expanded.

Anyways, I'm scheduled to see a neurologist next week to see if he can figure out what's going on. If he finds nothing wrong, then I'm being advised to consider a career change. They feel the stress and hours of my current job have most likely caught up with me. And if that's the case, they warn "It's gonna get worse before it gets better." The thought of either, finding a new job or having a medical challenge, is enough to completely stress me out! And they want me to reduce my stress?!?!

Anybody out there want to share some shop space and sell my scrap designs or paper crafts? Maybe I can work at home for a while?

Fish Like a Girl

2007-07-27T20:09:00.000-05:00

The latest challenge in the Amazing DigiScrap Race is to scrap our goals. Now, any of y'all who know me already know that any goal I have simply must include water and fishing! *LOL* There is just nothing in this world more relaxing to me than the sounds and smells of ocean waves crashing against a shore. At the same time, there is nothing more exciting or invigorating than the fight for a big catch. So I really struggled trying to come up with goals. *LOL* Actually, I do have personal goals like being a great Mom and Nonny, being a great wife, working hard so I can play hard, being a person of integrity, etc, etc. But in order to be my best at any of these things, it's necessary to take care of myself. And the best way I've found to care for myself, is to spend some time on the water....absorbing the sights, sounds and smells of that amazing sand and saltwater! Someday when I have some time to pull out some old journals and type them, I'll post some of the mental and emotional insights I've written out while sitting on the shore. But for now, I'll just post my latest scrap, made from my "Fish Like a Girl" kit.

If you'd like to download a sampler from my Fish Like a Girl kit, visit my scrap download blog.

Feeling down tonight

2007-07-24T19:01:00.000-05:00

I'm rarely ever sick; and when I am, I can't stand to be "down." So I just keep going. I feel I have a high tolerance to pain, having had all the kids with no pain meds, and a complete surgery under 2 mg of Valium....I can handle just about anything. I rarely take meds...just HATE them and am usually hyper sensitive to anything prescribed to me. (Thus the surgery with only 2 mg of Valium that knocked me out cold for days.) Besides, I can't slow down long enough to remember to take prescriptions. I'm just NOT a good patient. I know that. And I readily admit that.

So I'm really beside myself in a funk today!

Yesterday was a typical Monday with nothing out of the ordinary. Right in the middle of a meeting at work, out of no where, I broke out into a cold sweat, instantaneously followed by my life's all time worst migraine. It took over the entire left side of my head, left shoulder and neck, and completely blurred anything seen from my left eye. I couldn't turn my neck side to side, couldn't see clearly and had difficulty focusing mentally. I went home in tears.

I took aspirin, advil, tylenol and midrin over the following 6 hours, none of which would relieve the pain. Finally I gave in and used my Zomig, which I HATE because of the taste and "fuzzy fog" feeling it leaves in my head for several hours. But I was even willing to deal with that to get rid of this pain. I took it and went to bed. But that didn't work either.

I was up and down all night long, alternating advil, tylenol and aspirin, trying to knock off enough of an edge to sleep it off. I finally fell asleep sometime after 2:30am only to wake up again at 6am with my neck in SEVERE PAIN, still unable to turn my head side to side. I called the doctor this morning with complaints of "neck and head pain worse than being hit by a tractor trailer while in child birth" and "need something, anything, to make this stop!"
"Oh, and can you call it in really quickly so I can get to work on time?" (Ok, so even in excruciating pain, I still don't like to be slowed down!)

I ended up in the doctor's office getting the "down and dirty" spill about stress, aging, hormones, migraines, and all the things I don't do to take care of myself. ~sigh~ Then she asked THE question. And I was prepared for it and willing to do ANYTHING to stop the pain. So I said "Yes, I'll take the Imitrex injection."
Hey, I'm a nurse. I know the warnings...it's supposed to "sting and burn and may cause a flushing sensation." OK, so bring it on; it can't be worse than this headache! NOT!

OMG! I will NEVER again warn any of my patients that "This is going to sting." Instead, I will warn, "This is gonna hurt like a SOB and most likely be far worse than any headache or toothache you've ever experienced!" I have NEVER in my life had such a painful medical intervention! Stitches without lidocaine done with a dull needle would be more humane! There was a moment of relief in my neck and head because the nerves in my arm were in overdrive, shooting thousands of SOS messages to my brain!

And the "flushing sensation"? Well, tell me how in the heck one can tell if she is hot, cold or indifferent when you're praying for your arm to fall off?? The nurse cautioned, "Please stay still here for at least 15 minutes. You may feel a little flushed. Are you ok?" I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, "NO! I'm not ok! I came in here to get help for the worst pain I've ever felt in my life. And you had to go TOP that pain with a new record worst pain of my life?!? How in the heck SHOULD I feel right now?!?! Is there a Dr. Kevorkian in the building to put me out of my misery?!?"

But I didn't. Instead, I sat there fighting back the tears and mumbled under my breath, "I'm fine. Just fine." What more can I say? (Besides, if this doesn't work, who knows what inhumane torture they'll shoot me with next?!?!)

After about 20 minutes, the headache part of the migraine eased a bit. The vision in my left eye cleared up. And I was finally able to turn my head side to side a little bit. It felt like I would imagine a bad car accident with a major hangover would feel...banged up, bruised up and nauseous.

But I was able to get myself home and was feeling better....
for about an hour. Then it came back as suddenly, and as furociously, as it did yesterday.

And I caved...I called the doc again and was willing to do it all over again just to make the pain stop! Am I a pitiful woose or what?

Anyways, I'm now scheduled for a CT scan in the morning.
I'll keep y'all posted as to how it goes.

They Danced....

2007-07-22T23:55:00.000-05:00

The next part of the Amazing DigiScrap Race is a challenge to scrap a fairy tale. I couldn't think of better pics to scrap for this challenge than some old photos of DH's grandparents. They were a real life fairy tale, a professional dance team who traveled the world. In our back room, we have boxes of old photos, news articles, press releases, advertisements and reviews from their careers and travels. In the garage we even have an old billboard sign and a headliner marquee. Someday, I'd like to find the time to scrap all of these into a book for DH and the kids.

I never met his grandfather; he passed away before we were married. But I did have the great pleasure of getting to know his grandmother. She was so beautiful, and such an Elegant woman; and I do mean elegant with a capital E! Even into her 90s while small and frail, a victim of Alzheimer's, she continued to dance. She couldn't remember any of our names and could barely take herself between rooms of the house, but she continued to dance beautifully, going out every week without fail to do so.

Life to her was a dance. The girls still talk about visits with her during her last few months. We would enter the room to find her sitting in her favorite chair, in front of the window. She would so elegantly turn toward them, having no idea who any of us were, but would ever so gracefully motion with her hand for them to come sit next to her, as if introducing them to the rhythm of a grand symphony. Then, with a soft voice and impeccable grammar with a hint of a spanish accent, instruct them to "sit up straight, shoulders back, head high" as they sat down beside her. She was such a remarkable woman!

Even more remarkable was the fact that she seemed to know me so very well even though she could not remember me. One of the last things she said to me, as I walked across the room, proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt:

You cannot dance. My dear, you absolutely must listen more closely to the rhythm around you; but do not only listen to it, hear it, feel it, then move with it and live it. Without doing so, I fear you will have the misfortune of never being able to dance.

She was so right; and I still can't dance :(

Vintage Damask Papers from PaperMoons,
Grungy Frame from CSmith

The Amazing DigiScrap Race

2007-07-16T15:20:00.000-05:00

The first challenge of the race was posted this morning. Here is my first entry:

background paper=Marcee Duggar; cluster frames=fernlili

Trying for a Template CT Call

2007-07-15T21:28:00.000-05:00

This is the page I created for the Teriann's CT call. I loved this movie. It was very much like the story of my life; but instead of Tuscany, I found Georgia.

template=Teriann; rolled paper template=cheznannette; banner and flower=Pam Lefors; all other=senati

Scrapping Nightmare

2007-07-12T19:59:00.001-05:00

I'm so aggravated I could just scream! I had scrapped most of our best pictures from last week, saved them in a file on my desktop and planned to upload them all at the same time. Well, tonight was that time. I uploaded the first two and noticed that the confirmation screen kept reading that the file format wasn't recognized. So I went back to my desktop and double-clicked the file to bring it up in my PSP. PSP said the file was not recognized. So I tried it in Adobe PSE and got the same error.

So I tried the 2nd file, then the 3rd and the 4th....all were unrecognizeable files. I right clicked to check the properties. They're all the same as my other scrap files.

Must be my computer bogging down, huh? So I rebooted and tried again. I can't open or even preview any of the files in this folder. I drag-n-dropped them into a new folder and tried with no luck.

OK, my PSP must have gone haywire, huh?? I opened up PSP and made a new quickie scrap page and saved to the same folder, then closed everything down. I went back and double-clicked that page; and it immediately opened. ~AARRGGHH~

I have no idea what I did to that file and all the other scrap pages! (Or should I say, I don't know what my wretched computer did to them!?!) Either way, I won't have any more layouts to post until the weekend. ~sigh~

If anyone has any idea how to fix this file, PLEASE share! I'm at a loss here!

We're Home!

2007-07-08T19:25:00.000-05:00

We had a great time on Cape San Blas last week. We were down there for the opening day of scallop season! YUMMMM!!! Well guess what the girls were doing in St. Joe's Bay each morning?

(template from Misty Cato; overlay from Old Beach by Gerti)

For the Fourth of July, we went to Frank Pate Park for their Independence Celebration, where a pirate ship, loaded with St. Joe Pirates entered the park despite the many cannons attempting to defend the park. Here are some of our pics on a Lottchen template:

And the girls on the bay, waiting for the pirate arrival:

(elements courtesy of PaoJava & Lauren Bevin)

Remember when I told ya about my DD nominating DH for a "Small Town Heroes" award with a local radio station? Well, part of her nomination included her thoughts that DH "has no job...just a 24/7 commitment to a way of life...He's like Superman....he can't pass by anyone needing help." DH claims that is absolutely NOT true and that he can shut himself off when he leaves work. (Yeah, right, we've been hearing that one for years!) Well it happened again on vacation. We were driving past the bay when one of the girls said "Hey, that guy looks like he's hurt." DH said "Nope, I'm on vacation; I'm not stopping...no way, nuh huh, ain't gonna do it." Then he stopped and jumped out of the truck, claiming he only did so because the poor wife was struggling to hold the guy up after he split his foot and a couple of toes open on some barnicles and was "getting blood all over his poor wife and the pavement." (Yeah, right, any excuse is better than none, right?!? *LOL*)

Anyways, Katelyn couldn't resist taking some pictures of Dad, with his cold-blooded self, "shut down when he's off work." (She's right, the man just can't pass by an injury or accident!) So we used Barb's Superhero Kit to make another matching hero scrap page for the pics, including Katelyn's nomination paragraph as the journaling.

Here's the original nomination on the radio station webpage in case you missed it.

I have to go finish unpacking and get ready for work tomorrow. I'll try to post more of our pictures later in the week.
Hope y'all have a great week! :)

Poolside Parenting

2007-07-04T10:40:00.000-05:00

Ok, I can't stand it anymore. I simply MUST vent! I know I'm on vacation, and so are these other parents sitting around the pool. But for heaven sake, vacation should NOT completely obliterate any parental common sense or responsibility! I see several problems here...not just problems TODAY but future problems brewing with the future of our nation all because of some parenting lessons some of these folks need to learn today!

1. A screaming 6 month old, not crying mind you, SCREAMING at the top of her precious little lungs, poolside on a sunny morning that is already greater than 95 degrees, should be taken inside. She is not just cranky. She is hot, dehydrating and miserable. The mother keeps patting her back with one hand and applying sun tan lotion to her own legs with the other. I'd like to go snatch the mother up and smack her upside the head. But instead, opting not to be hauled away to jail for assault and battery, I sit here glaring at her, shaking my head and praying under my breath that the mother gets sun poisoning.

2. On the other side of the pool is a mother trying to get her toddler out of the pool for another coat of sunblock. The toddler keeps screaming "NO!" and refuses to get out of the pool. Rather than going into the pool and picking the toddler up, she threatens with "I'm going to tell your father!" The father comes out and asks what the problem is; and the mother explains that the toddler needs sunblock and refuses to get out of the pool. The father, in his ultimate wisdom, (NOT!) sternly tells the boy, "Son, get out of that pool right now so Mommy can put sunblock on you." The toddler again yells "NO!" to which the father threatens, "Fine! Then just get a sunburn!" and walks away. (OK, somebody slap both these parents upside the head before I push them both into the pool!)

3. Mother #3 is yelling at her 5-6 year old who continues to run around the pool. She has asked him, told him and even ordered him to stop running around the pool. She finally gets up and grabs him as he rounds the corner again for the 10th time. He screams at the top of his lungs, kicks and hits until she puts him down and again yells, "But I told you to STOP running!" The kid runs away screaming "NO, YOU STOP!" The mother plopped down on the side of the pool, growling in a temper tantrum and yelled for Dad, who looked up over his newspaper and said, "Do what your mother said." The kid continues to run around the pool.

Is it just ME? Am I the only one that thinks the chanllenge is NOT with the children, but rather with the parents?!? My two are in the pool, both of which are teenagers, one of which is now taller than me. But even as big as they are, let me tell ya, if either of them hestitates when I tell them to get out of the pool, I'll go into the pool, yank them out and sit them in their room until after lunch. And that will be the end of the pool for them today! No questions asked. No threats. No tattling to Dad. And God help a kid of any age who would tell me NO, kick or swing at ME! But then again, I didn't have them at the pool when they were infants, screaming at the top of their lungs on a 95 degree day. Nor did I ever tell them more than once to stop running around the pool when they were small enough for me to scarf them up and bench them to watch the rest of the world go by while they moped and thought about why they should listen the next time.

I guess I could just brag that I have good kids. But that's not it. I am a parent, even on vacation. And I take that responsibility seriously. Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go round up my own girl before I'm tempted beyond control to show some of these nimwits parents how it's done! ~sigh~

Patriotic Scrapping

2007-06-28T07:34:00.000-05:00

We'll be on vacation in Florida this year over the July 4th holiday. We're taking the girls to a Pirates Independence Day. They are SO obsessed with Pirates of the Caribbean; so this should be a blast for them! I've already started thinking about how I'll scrap all our pictures from the trip. I'll take my laptop so I can play on rainy days. Sometimes, if the weather gets really crazy, I even have the pictures scrapped before we even return home.

This year, my vacation scrap kit needs to be a patriotic-beachy-pirate theme. This should be a challenge! But I've already made some papers to get me started and thought I'd share a preview with you. I'll post the papers as freebies over the next week and will share the rest of the kit and some layouts when I return home. Want to see some of my papers thus far?

Check back later for the first download. I'll post the download link HERE sometime in the next 24 hours! :)

Another nice kit that would work well can be found HERE

It's the July monthly kit over at the Designs by J3 forum. Here's a preview of it:

Isn't this great?!? :)

Read the Instructions

2007-06-25T20:58:00.000-05:00

New Instructions:

Please look to the left of your screen and scroll down.
Note the new blinkie in my side bar.
After noting the cute little blinkie, click it!
Now jump on in and talk with the newest moderator at Designs by J3 Scrapbook Forums! :)

YEP! That's ME!! :)

I'll be posting some of my layouts over there each week. So please drop by and leave me a comment or join me in the mornings for a cup of coffee and a chat.

My Latest Adventures

2007-06-25T05:50:00.000-05:00

I'm finishing off the last sealant coats on the countertops. I'll apply the very last one on Friday. Then the countertops can sit and cure for a week without being bothered with spills and splatters while the girls are away. Even with teenagers, it's next to impossible to find a few hours when the countertops are without risk of teen abuse!

Now that I'm nearly finished with the counters, I have my sights set on the backdrop behind the stove/oven. I'm thinking that the Tuscan Red brick would be nice back there. DH nearly had a coronary when I mentioned the color red in the same sentence as the word kitchen. I tried to explain that it's not a "true red" but more of a brownish-wine color. But he continued to panic much in the same manner as he did when I mentioned the wine colored couch I had my eyes on. I don't know what it is about that man and the color red!?!

I picked out some stones and made a pattern on paper for what I want to put down on the floor in the entryway, in front of the door. I also want to pull out the carpet on the stairs....or at least the carpet on the risers of the stairs. I sat down this weekend with my handy PSP program and drafted out a scrolled design for some decorative stair riser covers that I want DH to cut for me. I thought about buying them from this company but the cost of doing just the entryway stairs would be bankrupting since the stairwell is 52" wide and would need special cuts for the stairs going around the corner. In other words, all specially cut :(

So I'd rather just do it ourselves, cutting a scrolled design from the center and backing that with a rusty variegated copper color. I haven't decided if I want plain wood on the steps themselves yet. But I'm leaning more towards the individual rug runners with some copper colors with green in them. (I know, more "red" again! ~sigh~)

I also worked on a new scrapbook kit this weekend. I need to scrap DH's promotion ceremony pictures and decided that I'd just make a kit to use on all his fire department pictures, articles, etc. Especially with Katelyn wanting to be a paramedic, I'm sure I'll find multiple uses for such a kit! I have the elements done; that was the easy part! But now it's a matter of background papers....that's the challenging part. I have a couple of blues and golds done. But I'm still not satisfied with them overall. I'll try to post a preview of what I have done so far tonight when I get home.

But for now, it's off to work again. Hope y'all had a great weekend! :)

New Pics of Bannisters

2007-06-16T09:33:00.001-05:00

I'm hoping that the word "bannisters" is correct? I don't know what else to call the tops of the stair walls. Is there another name for these?

I added some brown squares and circles from the countertop paper to the granite coming up the entryway of the house. Here is a picture after adding these.
Close up without the flash:

What do you think? My friend Debbirai suggested adding some brown to these. I figured this would be the easiest way of doing so without painting over the previous work while still keeping the granite look. And no, I didn't sit and cut all these shapes out. I'm much too impatient for that! I took my handy-dandy scrapbook corner cutters, the one inch circle and the 2 inch square and just popped these babies out in a matter of seconds. So I guess I can officially say that I have truly "scrapbooked" parts of my house! *LOL*

Scrapping Update:
I've updated the Patriotic QPs with the download links. Please leave a comment if you download :)

Newly Tutorial Link:
I found the coolest tutorial link here. It's for Photoshop; but I played around with it last night and found the tutorials to work great with my PSP8 also! She does a great job of explaining and using examples and pictures.

Bannisters, Upcoming Freebies, & Fathers Day

2007-06-14T19:48:00.000-05:00

I finally figured out what I could do with the bannisters coming up the entryway stairs. I added an inlay design that looks like brown marble, made from scraps left over from the kitchen countertops. It's looking much better. I'll try to post a picture this weekend :)

I've also been working on a Patriotic mini scrapkit between coats of the polycrylic. I'll be posting those this weekend also.

Father's Day is always a challenge for us. DH gives no hints of things he might like that is at the same time doable for us. I think that's why he does it! He'll only give very vague hints, like this one:
"Well, I'd like to have that one camera, can't remember the model number, but it has to be that specific one, and only if it has the blah, blah lens with the such and such attachment that will only work with the this & that software." See what I mean?!?

We always make him special pictures for his locker at work or a Daddy scrapbook or something along those lines, with a gift card to Home Depot, his favorite shopping locale. But this year we've done something different. Instead of giving him pictures to post in his locker, we posted HIS picture for the rest of the world to see. Using Mrs. Miles Superhero Kit, we made a scrapbook page. Then the girls wrote a nomination for a local radio station's Heroes list and submitted both. So far, DH hasn't seen it nor did he hear it on the radio since he's the only one in the house who won't listen to country music. BUT, some of the other guys at the station have seen it and are teasing him about being "bigger than Superman" and calling him Superhero. The girls, too, have started throwing in comments about Superman and Heroes from time to time. He still doesn't have a clue! So we've decided to print the radio station's webpage on Father's Day and put it on his dinner plate! I'll try to post a copy of the nomination letter later; it's really sweet.

Hope y'all have a great weekend :)

Now need to change entire house?!?!

2007-06-07T19:57:00.000-05:00

Ok, here is the stair bannister going up into the loft area:

This looks ok to me at the moment. But here is the bannister going into the hallway from the front corridor:

(There really are no black dots going up the left side of the bannister! Those popped up when I shrank the pic for the blog!~sigh~)

I'm not so sure I like this one after putting all that time into that aggravating orb finial :( The light colored raw wood beneath it just doesn't work for me! So should I paint it? Also that wood upright beam that the orb sits on...should I paper it to match the bannisters?

DH says he likes it just fine the way it is; but then again, he likes the "rustic country" look in the house. I'm not sure that wallpaper, the granite effect and that wood work together. I am just not sure I like it now and not sure what to do to make it look better to me.

HELP!!

OK, NOW I'm aggravated!

2007-06-04T17:39:00.000-05:00

Putting this Paper Illusions onto a countertop is fairly easy, even over the corners and curves of the counter. But then I had the bright idea to make all the stair bannisters granite instead of the previously bright, dirty white. The bannisters themselves aren't too complicated and are coming along quite nicely. But at the top of the stairs, there is a giant orb finial, similar to this that must match the bannisters. I've worked on this thing off and on for 2 days now and still can't get it done! Because of all the curves, I have to tear the paper into tiny little pieces so that they lie down smoothly. And just about the time I think I've got it, I hit a square corner or connection between the round and the square parts, and paper starts popping up!

On the bannisters, where the paper wraps around the sides, I've just been laying a book on top of the bannister for about 30 minutes, and VOILA, everything sticks nice and snug. But I haven't found anything that will work on a round top! And standing there holding the darn thing between every little piece of paper about the size of a dime is really getting old!

I started on it again after work today and had this bright idea to attach those thick, fat rubber bands around it to hold the wet paper. Looked like it would work. Seemed to be working. But then poor Bubba (our black lab) went running through the hall, hit the orb with his tail. Rubber bands and paper went flying down the hall, making a huge mess and traumatizing the poor dog who will now probably need a doggie psychiatrist for his PTSD!

I'm ready to pull the darned thing out of the base and hurl it through the bay window that I want to replace this summer! Why not kill two birds with one stone, as the old saying goes?!?

Sunday News

2007-06-03T06:56:00.000-05:00

I didn't get as much done on the countertops and bannisters as I would have liked yesterday. The "stop and start" of running the girls around, attending my niece's dance recital, having family in from out of town, and laundry took a big dent out of the hours of my day. I'll try to get back on it later today and will try to post some pics from yesterday.

DH wasn't home yesterday. He spent most of the day at the funeral of a fellow firefighter. Please keep this family in your prayers.

Please also keep a fellow scrapper's family in your prayers. Sweet Carla passed away yesterday after a brain aneurysm.

Countertops continued

2007-06-01T20:33:00.000-05:00

The countertop that makes up the dining room bar is now done. I took a picture with and without flash; neither of them do it justice. But here are the pics anyways:

Here is the little counter by the stove that I started tonight:

You can really see the difference in the counter tops in this one.
One of the best things about all this is that DH stood in there last night and said, "Wow! These counters are really turning out well. But now they make these old cabinets look even worse! We really gotta do something with the rest of this kitchen!"

YESSIRRREEE!!! Maybe he'll get a hair up his butt and pull down all the cabinets doors for me?!? Then I can repaint the entire kitchen and refinish the cabinet doors. Those things alone would help tremendously!

Have I mentioned how much I really hate that golden kitchen?!? *LOL*

My latest project: Kitchen Countertops

2007-05-30T21:46:00.000-05:00

We've planned to remodel the kitchen, extending it out even with the back of the house, ever since I moved into it. Have we ever gotten it done? No. Every year it seems something else comes up or happens that prevents us from having the money needed for such a large project. And basically, at this point, I'm tired of waiting for it. This is the "before" picture of the countertop between the dining room and kitchen:

The lighting is inappropriate. Sorry, but DH is the photographer in the family; and he wasn't home when I decided I couldn't stand the kitchen any longer. The countertop is a pale golden colored laminate. The house was built in the early 90s. But I swear, the original owner had a 70s obsession! Everything in the house was originally white, gold and avocado green.

I did some reading about a product called "Paper Illusions" that can be used for crafts, cabinets, walls, etc. It's a "breathable" wallpaper that you tear and then reassemble like puzzle pieces to look like Tavertine, marble or stone. Well guess what? Two styles were on clearance at the Lowes by my office for 50% off. So I bought one roll each of the granite and multi-stone patterns. I plan on using the granite on the stair bannisters that are large, wide, white painted wood that I don't have the patience or time to strip and refinish at the moment. The other, has been torn and prepared for my kitchen counters. I figure at this point, for less than $50, I can't mess it up too awfully bad. And if I do, I can just tear it all out and replace it when we finally do the kitchen remodel.

It took me two hours to put these torn pieces down on the counter after priming it. I let it sit overnight to dry. Here is the picture "after" the Paper Illusions, but before I started sealing and polishing it:

I may not want to tear out the cabinets and counters at this rate?!? So far so good! This morning I got up early and put down the first coat of polyurethane. After work today, I sanded it down with fine sandpaper, cleaned it up, and put the second coat of poly on it. I'm using a satin finish trying to prevent the brush strokes of which the glosses so often challenge me. After my first four coats of poly have cured for a week, I'll put a coat of clear acrylic over it and then buff it up to a nice shine. I'll post the final pictures next week after I'm done.

Heck, this weekend, maybe I'll go ahead and try one of those stair bannisters? It's gotta be better than those dingy white painted boards there now. I'll try to take some before and after pictures of those too.

Some QPs and my new page topper

2007-05-27T22:45:00.000-05:00

Hi Everyone,

I finished up my page topper and made some QPs this weekend. You can preview them here.
Let me know what you think :)

(I couldn't get the page topper to post on this blog; so I loaded it to wordpress to see how it looked.)

Have a super weekend :)

Raw Oysters

2007-05-20T19:12:00.000-05:00

Everyone in our household, EXCEPT ME, loves raw oysters. When we go on vacation, they are all on the lookout for happy hours and early bird specials. Yesterday, the girls commented that they couldn't wait for Fall to get back down to Apalachicola to get their Fall oyster "fix." These are pictures from their Oyster Bash this past April in Okaloosa at AJ's. And yes, they really did eat 6 dozen of those slimy things that afternoon!

I also saved the bamboo basket and frames as a PNG template. If anyone would like to have it, just leave your email addy in the comments section. Sorry, but the guestcheck was made by KristyAnn so I can't share it. But I'll be happy to email you the template without the guestcheck :)

Playing with PSP tonight

2007-05-17T22:36:00.000-05:00

And made this frame. What do you think? I've not quite mastered wrapping ivy around the wood. But I think it's still usable...at least for me. LOL

I saved it as a tranparent PNG image. You can snag it for personal use by downloading here.

Fish Like a Girl

2007-05-13T20:49:00.000-05:00

Here's a mini-kit I made for the Designs by J3 kit challenge. I made it with Katelyn in mind, for some of her fishing pics.

If you like it, leave a comment on this post to get the link :)
(Yes, I'm learning the hard way....almost 400 downloads on my QP and less than 5% of that number commented! And heck, I'm easy; I'd be happy if 1 in 4 commented!)

I made a new header for my blog today! Actually, it's 4 headers in one. It will have a "window to my life" on it; and the view in the window will change with my moods and/or the seasons. I hope to get it up later this week if all goes well. I'm trying it out first on another "throw down" blog to see if it works as planned so that I don't make a total fool out of myself if it doesn't! *LOL*

Stay tuned! :)

Happy Mother's Day!

2007-05-12T11:55:00.000-05:00

The youngest two DDs and I made picture bookmarks for their Grandmas this weekend. Both of them love to read and love pictures. I used Mireille's Rosi kit for this. I just loved her colors in this one. Here's the bookmark we made:

To all you Moms out there, I hope it's a wonderful weekend filled with love and joy :)

Tropical QP

2007-05-08T21:14:00.000-05:00

My daughter wanted a QP with a tropical bird holding some dangling frames. So this is what we came up with after many "No Mom, not that color, this color" and "No Mom, move that over here, then over there" changes. I'm not sure that the side waves nor their colors really work for me. But hey, teens these days wear so many multiple patterns and colors together these days that I've lost the ability to decode color schemes! *LOL*
I put some pics in her frames for this sample. But the download is a PNG file with transparent boxes.

If you like her little tropical QP, you may download it here and use it for personal use only. Just remember to leave Codah a comment here :)

More Living Room Scrap Freebies

2007-05-08T21:06:00.000-05:00

Here are some more pieces to my Tuscany Living Room kit:

The sizes may not be uniform in this file. I'm struggling with my zipper program at the moment. It seems to want to resize items for me when I'm mixing png and jpgs in the same zip file. **ARGGHH** But you can download it here if you like it.

Papers for my scrap kit

2007-05-01T08:15:00.000-05:00

I made some more elements and papers for my kit last night. I made a preview of some of the papers and put them into a picture frame I made last night. The frame is the color of the wood walls in the living room. I did this so you could give me opinions of how these colors would look in the living room. PLEASE COMMENT. DH is not at all happy about a "red couch." I explained that it won't be "red"; it will be "burgandy." *LOL* He thinks these colors will make the living room look too "dark and gloomy."

On the other hand, DH wants a "light tan colored" couch with some "light colored" pillows. Somehow, I feel that this would just wash out the living room. And it doesn't really work with the black woodburning stove in there, or would it? I don't want to go too light in there. It just doesn't seem realistic to me because we still have two teens and Bubba at home. (Bubba=black lab, overgrown baby who thinks he's a lapdog) And guess who has to clean that furniture? Yep, the very person who wants to lighten up the room but doesn't want the furniture being too light! ~sigh~
Again, what do you think?

New scrap idea

2007-04-29T00:11:00.000-05:00

Downstairs in one of the bedrooms, we have an old fashioned door with these wide, decorative hinges. The girls are forever sticking pictures of their latest heart throb (this month it's Johnny Depp) between the hinge and the door, using the door and hinge as a bulletin board. So this evening I was think that this might be cute for a scrapbook page to go with my Tuscany color kit. Of course, I'll put something other than the girls' latest heart throb on it. *LOL* But I thought this might be something different for scrapping journals, tags or pics? What do you think?

If you're interested in the elements and wood to make one of these, leave me a comment. I'll try to upload them and post a link sometime tomorrow.

SUNDAY UPDATE:
Ok, here is the link to download the wood and hinges.
I made some more papers for this set this afternoon. I'll upload a preview of some of the other parts later in the week. So check back for more! :)

Alone in the Mountains

2007-04-28T13:46:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting out here on the back deck with my laptop and a fresh glass of iced tea, taking a break. I'm alone today, but definitely not lonely. When I was younger, I had trouble understanding the difference between the two words. But "lonely" hasn't been part of my vocabulary in years. And "alone" is a word I cherish on those rare occasions when I manage to get such time. The girls went rafting as part of a retreat with our church youth group and will be gone until tomorrow evening. DH is working a 24 hour shift. It's an absolutely gorgeous day here in North Georgia! The sun is out giving us a noon temp of 75 with a wonderful Spring breeze blowing through the trees. Life is good! :)

I got up this morning and stripped all the beds, washed all the linens and valances, packed away all the winter linen and pulled out most of the spring/summer supply. I say most because the new set that I bought last summer for the master bedroom has been stolen by gremlins! I swear, I've looked in every closet of the house and can't find them! How do I lose such things?? It simply must be gremlins because I can't come up with any other explanation! I vacuumed and washed all the window screens and opened all the windows of the house. Then I cleaned all the woodwork around the windows with Murphy's Oil Soap. Then I polished them up with Grandma's old kitchen recipe for woodwork. Geez, I love that stuff! I had all this done by noon! Isn't it crazy how I can get so much more done so quickly when I'm alone than when I have family "help" at home?!?

I don't have curtains anywhere in the house. Basically, I feel curtains take away from the wonderful woodwork around the windows and take away from the window views. So I use valances, scarves and over-the-window shelves throughout the house. On bedroom and bathroom windows, I have mini-blinds to give privacy. During the day they are up behind the valances; and at night they are down. It seems to work well for me, except during Springtime. I HATE cleaning the darned things! For today, I hung them up on the back deck, soaped them down with dishsoap and sprayed them down with the garden hose. But they don't get truly cleaned that way.
I've yet to find a good, efficient and effective way to do this. If any of y'all have any advice, please share!

Well, the dryer just buzzed. So it's back into the house to fold laundry and start on the bathrooms. I'll update y'all later this evening.

Scrapbook Freebies

2007-04-25T21:28:00.000-05:00

Ok, I'm trying my hand at scrapbook kits. But it didn't start as a scrapbook. It started because I need new living room furniture. The current stuff is almost 20 years old. And I couldn't decide what I wanted in there that would look country classic while being somewhat classy. We have the raw pine walls with an exposed oak beam ceiling, hardwood floors, and a wonderful old black woodburning stove in there. The green couch and loveseat we have now are ok for color; but the wood end tables are just too much. I wasn't sure I wanted green in there again because we have so much green as a backdrop to that big bay window in there. Living in the country with woods all around us, we have enough green in every room. I need more color in there. I need a change! And I've spent the past 2 years putting off the redecorating in there because I just couldn't decide what I really wanted.

I was looking at a magazine last month that had this beautiful burgandy baroque fabric in it. It was laid across two other bolts of fabric that were a deep gold and dark purple with some blues in them. All were set on a black table with iron legs. And it hit me....those are the colors! That's the look I want in there! I held the picture up to the bay window; and even the greens from outside looked great with those colors. It had kind of a tuscany sort of feel to it. It would add more color in there; and the black of some iron tables in there would open up the space and contrast more against all the woodwork.

So now I'm in search of the perfect burgandy colored couch. While I'm looking, I decided to use the colors for some scrapbook pages to make sure of the colors and shades, while also trying to determine how much of each color I want and need to give it the look I now think I want.

I may post the entire kit later. But for now, here are a couple of quickpages I made (in PNG format so you can put a picture under it in the transparent area). They are 8x8 at 200dpi. I couldn't decide if adding the key was too much. So I'm including them both. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Here are the preview pics:

If you like them, here and here are the download links.
Please use for personal use only.

How many daughters (Part 2)

2007-04-22T19:51:00.000-05:00

I scrapped some pics of the four girls from today. I used a quickpage found here

I made these to be a two page, side-by-side, layout.

How many daughters do I have?

2007-04-22T11:40:00.000-05:00

One of the wonderful aspects of having daughters is that for each one I have, I inherit several more. At times, this can be rather challenging because I can never quite figure out, when asked "Geez, how many daughters do you have?" what I should say. There are always more girls in the house, running around calling, "Hey Mom" than there are girls to whom I have given birth. Then when we run errands, go to the store or on vacation, I always seem to have the Beast (our SUV) loaded with girls. I know the cashier at Walmart today thought I had either lied to her or lost my mind.

Teen Girl #1 runs up to me and says, "Mom, I'll be right back. I'm going to run over and talk to my friend."
Me: Ok hon, but I'm leaving in 5 minutes.
Teen Girl #2: Mom, can I please buy a new hairbrush while I'm here?
Me: Yeah, but get it back over here quickly because I'm leaving in 5 minutes.

Cashier: How many daughters do you have?

Me: Today, just those two. I have 3 other adult daughters who live out of town. (I no more get this out of my mouth before more daughters appear)
Teen Girl #3: Hey Mom, I think I just started my period; I'm going to run to the bathroom, then I'm going home with you, ok?
Teen Girl #4: Hey Mom, I'm going to the bathroom with her, ok?
Teen Girl #5, skipping over from nowhere: MOM!!! Did you see my prom pics?!? What did ya think? Can you make me some scrapbook pages for them?
Teen Girl #1: Mom, I'm back. Will you buy me this new CD?
Teen Girl #6: Hi Mom! Katelyn says you're leaving in 5 minutes; can you drop me off at the house on your way?
Teen Girl #7: MOM! Can I get a ride with you tonight to small groups?
Teen Girl #2: Here's the hairbrush I want.

Cashier: Are you SURE you only have TWO daughters here today?
Me: No, I lied. I have no idea how many daughters I have. I'll know when I get to the vehicle and count them. But looks like, once again, I'm leaving with more than I brought with me. ~sigh~
Cashier: Do you know how many you gave birth to?
Me: No, because it depends on how you define 'gave birth'!

When I left the house for church this morning, I had just one, because one had spent the night with a friend. I had four in the Beast when I arrived home. And when I leave to go back to small groups, I'll have six. If all goes as planned, when I arrive home tonight, I'll be back down to the original two again.

DH called from work a few minutes ago to make sure we got home ok, and asked his typical weekend question,
"So how many girls do we have today?"
Me: At the moment, four; I THINK. But I went to Walmart after church; and as usual, completely lost count before I could get out of the store!

When all the girls are grown, I wonder what we will do? We've lived with all the chaos, hormones, hairbrushes and nail polish for so long that I question whether there is life after all these girls? I guess we'll figure it out later. But for now, I'm counting my many, many blessings and enjoying them all while I can because I wouldn't swap a day of this chaos for nothing in this world! :)

Here's the scrapbook pages I made for daughter number umpteen, (Remember, I lost count! *LOL*) who went to her first prom this year. I used a kit by Kim Liddiard for both, and a template from AmyW for the first one. I hope she likes these. I've emailed them to her and will show them to her when she gets back to the house with my youngest daughter. They all went for a walk to pet the horses down the road.

News from Destin/Ft Walton Florida

2007-04-05T11:11:00.000-05:00

We are on Spring Break with the girls, staying on beautiful Okaloosa Island in one of the gulf front Summerlin Condo units. We love this area for several reasons, the most important being the water, beaches and fishing, all within a comfortable drive from home! This particular building has great gulf front patio decks with magnificent views and sounds of the water. It also has wireless internet that works great out there so I can sit in the cool early morning hours, wrapped in my favorite robe, (like this morning) and blog to my heart's content while watching the ocean over my laptop and listen to the waves. Life is good! :)

In the late afternoons, I go down to the Okaloosa Pier and fish until my right hand and shoulder hurt so bad that I can't take any more. Then we bring the cooler full of spanish macks back to the condo to clean, freeze and feast on our many blessings of the day. Someday, when/if we're ever able to retire, we'd like to be able to buy a place down here somewhere on the water. A place we could visit several times a year, even live in the winter months, but still be able to enjoy the mountains of our current home in the Summertime and Fall months. And the great thing about those months is not only the beauty of the mountains during those months, but also prevents us from experiencing the worst of the hurricane season here.

We've made many memories and family traditions down here through the years. We make this same trip 4-5 times annually. Our first night down here on each trip is spent eating fresh local shrimp. We usually stop by one of the shrimp boats and buy a couple of pounds to take to the condo. Then by mid-week, the girls are begging and pleading to visit the Lucky Snapper for lunch on the marina. We did the same this past Tuesday, going around 2:30pm to avoid the crowds. We were seriously disappointed this time! We were seated immediately. But then waited for for what seemed like forever while waiters looked at us, went around us, and even stood chatting and laughing with each other at the bar area. But not one of them came by to greet us or take our drink orders. DH attempted to flag down various waiters, but all would look at us, then walk on past us. After over 15 minutes of this, DH asked if we were ready to try something else. The girls, who were so looking forward to this lunch, readily said, "Yes! I feel like an alien on a different planet here today!"

We were all sorely disappointed with the Lucky Snapper and doubt that we'll return. We walked out as a waiter approached us at the door to ask what we were doing. DH, rather impatiently stated, "You now have another empty table to watch instead of the people at it." We walked down to our ever faithful AJ's where both the service and food, was as always, wonderful. It worked out well because we hit AJ's during "Happy Hour" where you can get a dozen oysters for $4.25. DH and Katelyn had 5 dozen between them, in addition to their usual sandwich platters! Codah and I split the No Frills Steamer Platter, and still had to take almost half of it back with us.

Another restaurant we tried this time was the Fisherman's Wharf on Hwy 98. We had dinner there on Sunday night. The food and service were both great there also. And the prices were good.

That's it for this morning. The girls are now up and ready for breakfast. Then we'll be off for another day of sand, water and fish! :)

Scrapbook Templates

2007-03-20T20:30:00.000-05:00

My oldest DD (the mother of the beautiful baby pictured below) has decided to try her hand at digital scrapbooking and has asked me to help her learn how to use the PSPX and PSE on her computer. After thinking about her question "Where do I start?" I finally determined that it might be best that she start with templates. Rather than "share" the templates that I have collected over the past year or so, I told her I would send her the links to the sites where I find all my best templates. Since I reference them from time to time here, I figured y'all might like these sites also. So here they are, in no particular order:

Misty Cato
Val's Blog
ConnyB's Place
Ikeagoddess

Here's a great site with PSP tutorials

I'll try to post some more links later. But for now, I have two reports to finish up before morning. Good night everyone! :)

I'm a Nonny again!

2007-03-20T19:03:00.000-05:00

Last Tuesday night, my oldest DD gave birth to her second child, another son. Both DD and baby Judah are doing great! And he's absolutely beautiful. Here's his first scrap page I made this weekend, using Misty Cato's template:

His daddy wanted his first pictures taken in a pair of overalls. However, the size 0 overalls he bought for him swollowed the poor little guy up. So I used a denim background for the scrap page; it's the closest thing to overalls I could do! *LOL*

Negligent Blogger Again?

2007-03-11T14:20:00.000-05:00

Not really, although I know it seems like it. I'm working on another blog, one for a more specific purpose, for my adult DD. I'll post a link here when I get it up and running. I don't want to bring y'all down by reading my rants on this blog. You see, I'm starting to realize that I'm having difficulty in finding humor in anything. Usually, I can find sarcastic humor in just about anything. I usually don't take myself seriously. And I usually don't worry. But the "mom" in me has kicked in with a fury. And I realize I need a release. So I'm going to blog all this hurt, worry and pain out of my system. Maybe then, I can let go of some of this and get back to my old self.

In order to do so, I'm going to write letters to my DD. I can't talk to her these days, because this bright, beautiful, intelligent young lady is suffering some natural consequences for behaviors and choices made over the past year or two. The ultimate demon behind these behaviors is addiction, an illness that she continues to deny and for which she continues to refuse treatment.

Some of her excuses include:
Treatment would take her away from her friends; and she's simply unwilling to make such a sacrifice. Treatment would involve new friends who might not understand her undying devotion to her fiance, who, btw, she can only see when she visits the county lock-up. Treatment would include admission that she has a problem, which she is unwilling to do because she considers that "a lie". She considers her only problems to be a result of her parents not loving her enough to make bail for her boyfriend and pay off and buy back her repossessed car.

After being "missing" for several months with no contact, she is finally calling again. I should be thankful; at least I know she is alive. But EVERY time she calls, it's to curse, scream, cry, blame, intimidate, and attempt to guilt one of us into a cash donation to further fuel her illness and lack of accountability. When we refuse this, and offer other alternatives like treatment, she angrily hangs up the phone and disappears again for several days.

The calls are coming more frequently. So I know she must be getting closer to that perverbial "rock bottom" that addicts must often reach before change. But she's still not willing to change her lifestyle in order to change her life. So the angry hang up is coming much sooner in the call than before. Of course, it probably doesn't help when she continues to cry out, "What are you going to do to fix this mess?" and I reply, "Let us help you help yourself to work through it." That's usually when I get the angry, "You're my mother! I just need you to fix this mess!" and then the hang up.

It hurts. It hurts to hear her like this. It hurts to not be able to wave a magic mommy-wand and make it all go away. It hurts that in my attempts not to enable her, she believes that I don't care or don't love her. It also hurts to hear all the lies, the excuses and the denial. And probably the worst pain of all is having a daughter who is a total stranger, a person I feel I don't even know.

I know I didn't cause this, can't control it and can't cure it. But I also know that her addiction is taking a lot out of me. Therefore, I will blog while I continue to pray that someday, somehow, she will come around.

My Father

2007-03-02T23:58:00.000-05:00

I have a sign in my office that says "My father taught me how to fly." It's somewhat a play on words. But it's also very much the definition of my life because he taught me to "fly" both literally and figuratively. Dad did fly planes. And he took me up to let me try my piloting skills in my first flight before I was ever old enough to drive a car. I grew up hearing "...it's like flying a plane, honey" as the answer to various questions about life and relationships. But he also taught me that flying is not just about planes, it's an attitude. It's an outlook. It's a way of living one's life and keeping perspective while doing so.

Due to some recent life and local events, I was thinking about parenthood on my way to work. My mind drifted off to my own parents. And it suddenly occurred to me, I was born to perfect parents. I kid you not! There was never any drinking, cursing, name calling, or judgement. They modeled appropriate behaviors, responses, and attitudes. My folks always did and still to this day, epitomize the definition of love with both family and friends.

I didn't appreciate my folks during my teen years. I considered them to be hyper-conservative, over-protective and terribly backwards. Sometime during college, I started wondering why it was that I was the one getting a college education, but yet my parents, neither of which ever went to college, seemed to be getting so much smarter while I was away. They could never help me with my chemistry or my calculus. But they were far wiser than any of my professors. It was mind-boggling! They couldn't teach me anything the university taught me. But they taught me something far more valuable....how to fly.

Anyways, while thinking about this in my car, this song came on the radio by Aaron Tippin. I was totally blown away because this song was written about MY father. All the expressions in the song are ones that I grew up hearing daily. So I came home and looked up the song. You can only imagine my shock when I watched the video! It explained how I got to where I am today and how much truth there is in that sign hanging in my office. My father taught me how to fly. And I'm realizing more and more each day that I've gained most of my education while flying. And now I fly in life and no longer need a plane to do so because of how Dad believed.

I've been truly blessed and will forever be grateful for my parents, despite the ignorance of my teen years :)

I leave you today with one of many of my Dad's sage pieces of advice:
"...it's just like flying a plane, honey. Altitude is always dependent upon attitude, both in the plane and in life."

Key West Weekend

2007-02-25T23:17:00.000-05:00

We took a long weekend mid-month and headed down to Key West to do some fishing over the weekend and to allow the girls to do a special "backstage" tour at the Miami Metro Zoo. We have a friend, who works for the zoo, who was gracious enough to spend her day with us and even cook dinner for us that night. The girls had a wonderful time with the baby rhino and giraffe, and feeding both carrots and apples from their hands. I've scrapped some of our pics and posted below. Thanks to ConnyB and Misty Cato for their templates. Their templates made my scrapping so much faster....just plop down the colors and textures, add the pics, and VOILA, a colorful scrapbook! :)

We didn't get to do much fishing. The cold weather followed us down. And on Sunday, the winds were 35 mph....the one day that DH talked us into spending the day on scooters zipping around the Old Town of Key West! But regardless of the weather, the scenery, food and culture were wonderfully relaxing and a great break that was most needed by all of us.

Here is the link for the picture slideshow, just in case it doesn't load below. I'm still learning this flash slideshow stuff and not doing well at it thus far :(
Key West Slideshow

Kitchen Changes Part 2

2007-02-13T22:17:00.000-05:00

Well, the kitchen floor is finally finished except for a couple of pieces of the floorboard/trimwork that couldn't be cut due to the storms that moved in. DH says he'll finish it next week when we return from our fishing trip. It looks much better than the old floor and was much faster and easier than sanding down and refinishing the hardwoods underneath. It's not the finish that I would have chosen; but I think it turned out really well.

This floor is not nailed nor glued down. In fact, it's not attached at all; it's just laying there. And there is a spongy layer, like a carpet pad, between this floor and the original hardwood floor. So it will cause no further damage to the floor underneath. This thing is what they call a "self-leveling floating floor" system. It contracts and expands with the weather and temperatures. And let me tell ya, it feels GREAT to the feet! It's like a hardwood floor, but not "hard" like a floor. It feels like wood but yet feels like walking in a good pair of tennis shoes. But you don't feel it or see it give or move with you. It's pretty wild!

My hairdresser came over tonight to cut my hair. The first thing she said was, "OMG! Look at this floor! When did y'all do this......OMG!!! FEEL this floor!!! What the heck is this?!?!" She must have walked and stomped across the kitchen ten times! *LOL*

Well, it's called oak. But it sure doesn't feel like it! The boards came pre-stained with a protective finish. And let me tell ya, that's one heck of a finish!! When we were moving the stove back into it's spot, the cord got hung up underneath it. That huge 3-pronged cord end scraped across the floor. I almost cried at the thought of having a brand new floor with a horrible gouge right down the middle of it already. DH jumped up and said, "Don't worry honey, they say this finish is practically indestructable; you just clean it with a damp cloth." (Yeah right! Like a damp cloth is gonna take that scrape out of the floor!)

Ummmm, well, as much as I HATE to admit that DH was right, he was and it did! It "wiped" right off and leveled back out!! You can't see or even feel where it was! I'm telling ya, this stuff is the bomb, as Katelyn puts it!! :) Anyways, here are some pictures of the new floor. (The kitchen really isn't lop-sided; I just didn't do a good job with the camera! *LOL*) The gouge from the stove cord WAS right there in front of the refrigerator.

Changes in the kitchen

2007-02-11T20:23:00.000-05:00

Well, DH came home from work late this morning. He stopped by Home Depot on his way home so he would have something to do this week. ~sigh~

After church, he talked the girls into helping him tear out the old floor. What a mess! And guess what we found under it? A "new" looking hardwoood floor that has never even been finished. The original owner glued linoleum directly onto this floor! Check this out:

Heaven only knows when I'll get my kitchen back. And why DH would want to start this project three days before we have to go out of town is beyond me. But I'll keep y'all posted on the progress!

Week 3 off work

2007-02-11T01:08:00.000-05:00

DH decided that he could replace the kitchen floor with the use of just one arm. Yeah right! I wasn't waiting around to see how that one turned out!
He was already calling around to various Home Depots to find the "eucalyptus finish" that he wanted. (I don't know why he can't get it through his head that I want bamboo in the kitchen) And I wasn't willing to take a chance that he might hurt himself even further and be stuck at home for even longer than he has been over his ribs. (I'm only thinking of his well-being, you know!) So I called the doctor and begged, pleaded and came close to threatening him into allowing DH to return to work. Light duty at work must be safer for him than light duty at home! I was adament with the doctor that DH would be far safer at work than at home; his life would be literally hanging on the line if he was at home for another week.

Tonight, I sit here alone while DH is at work. Notice that I said "alone" and not "lonely"? I'm actually feeling relieved. He's called me a half dozen times to see what we're doing and to tell me how much he misses us, how bored he is on light duty and how he can't wait to get back to his old routine again. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I can't wait either! I'm wondering if he will ever be able to retire? Hmmmm, I'm not thinking that would be in either of our best interests; I might turn into a spider!

Week 2 with DH at home

2007-02-10T23:43:00.000-05:00

As the snow melted, the weather returned to normal, and the kids returned to school, DH became more irritable, impatient, bored and dangerous.

He moved the Xbox to our bedroom and set it up on a TV at the end of our bed. Then after he became bored with the games, he decided that the bedroom looked cluttered. (Gee, I wonder why?!?) So he decided to clean while I was at work.

A little reminder here: DH can build a house from the ground up. He can build elaborately beautiful furniture. He can rebuild his old truck. He's an exceptional cook. He's quite talented.........as long as he doesn't touch the laundry nor "clean" the house!

When I came home that night, my first clue that something wasn't quite right at home was the rug in the entry way. The tassles were gone.
DH: The vacuum cleaner ate them! I don't know why; it's never happened before!
Me: That's probably because the rest of us don't run the vacuum over the tassles on the rug.

The second clue was at the top of the stairs where on the table sat my grandmother's glass bowls, now empty where once was potpourri.
DH: I threw it out because the dog kept bumping into the table and I didn't want him to spill that stuff on the floor.
Me: The vacuum cleaner could have handled that job.

Then I noticed the boxes in the hallway.
Me: What's this?
DH: I was bored today so I cleaned the house! :)
Me: OK, so what's in the boxes?
DH: Stuff that I didn't know where to put. I put it all in boxes until you could go through it and decide where it goes. Can you do that tonight so I can finish up?
(Ok, I'm starting to feel a tinge of irritability at this point.)

The rest of the night is now a blur in my mind! As I walked through the house, I became totally disoriented, no longer able to think clearly nor to be responsible for my own actions!

The stacks of receipts, forms, legal papers, spreadsheets, etc that I had spent the previous weekend preparing to do our taxes that week, that had been neatly stacked in categories next to my desk, were now gone. The wicker basket on the other side of my desk that held my computer supplies like printer cartridges, disks, USBs, cords, etc was now gone. The floors were TOO clean...absolutely NOTHING on the floors. My desk was TOO clean...all my paperwork had vanished. MY dresser top is clean.......TOO clean. Where the heck is my music box? My little lanterns? My wicker basket? The clothes basket in my closet? GEEEZ! Even my Home magazines on my nightstand are missing!!

As he smiled proudly and walked over to the dresser and opened one of my drawers, the only thing that would come out of my mouth as he smiled and TRIED to say "Look what I did" was "OH NO YOU DID NOT!"

Yes he did! He sorted and straightened my socks! No longer are my casual socks on one side and my dress socks on the other. Now they are all mixed together and sorted by color! Where once I had a drawer for bras and a drawer for panties, now there are two drawers of mixed panties and bras....all sorted by color.

And he did MY laundry! And he washed my jackets and sweaters with my blouses and put them in the dryer!!!! Do you know what happens to jackets and sweaters in the dryer!?! And do you know what happens when your husband lets a bra get into the washer with your sweaters? How about when one of those little bra hooks gets caught in a sweater??

But then I glanced over into my craft room. MY room. The only room in the house that is entirely MINE; the room where NOBODY dares to venture without going through ME first. As I growled, he complained, "There's no reason for you to be so upset; I didn't touch a thing in your craft room!" No, he didn't touch a thing. But now I can't either! I can't even get through the door, LITERALLY! He has stacked all the books from the bookcase and all the bags of stuff he cleaned out from his closet inside my craft room so that he could make room for the Xbox, DVD player, games, joysticks/gamesticks, (whatever you call those things) movies, etc that are now in our bedroom at the end of our bed with that danged TV that takes up half of the room! So in other words, our bedroom is now the family room!

And another pet peeve, if I might share yet another vent...he didn't even dust any of this stuff while he was moving it all around! But he's concerned about me going through the boxes he has stacked up and putting stuff away? I'm beginning to understand why some female spiders mate with the males and then eat them! The males get one mating experience and then they're history! Sounds like a plan to me!!

The bad blogger continues (Part 2)

2007-02-10T23:20:00.000-05:00

As I sat warming up the Beast, I thought, "Why the heck am I doing this?!? I just drove my car yesterday and did fine in the weather! Heck, I was driving a tractor in 5th grade! I should just turn this thing off and drive my car! Nope! I don't need him worrying! I don't need to drive down such a potentially dangerous snow-covered driveway. And I don't need him worrying about me getting stuck. He's probably going to worry about whether or not I even know how to drive this thing too! Heaven forbid! I can't have him worrying like that! I owe it to him to help alleviate all this stress and worry!"

***EVIL GRIN***

Slowly I backed the Beast up, being ever so careful to back around the basketball goal and aim the nose of the Beast carefully down the driveway. Then I looked back up to the house, where DH was standing at the patio door, watching me back his "baby" up, ever so carefully around that basketball goal. (Yes, he told me afterwards that he was worried about me sliding into the goal post. I KNEW he would worry about that!) I smiled and waved goodbye to him.

Then I put that bad-boy into 4 WD-HI and took it right down the middle of the yard, right through the middle of all those trees! (It's really not as bad as it looks. The yard is a much more straight shot than the driveway is. ) WHAT A THRILL!!! If I had known that 4WD'ing across the yard was that much fun, I would have done it a long time ago!

My cell phone was ringing almost before I got out of the yard and onto the road. I answered it with, "Hey honey! I didn't slide down the driveway! These bad-boy wheels never even touched that driveway! Aren't ya proud of me?!?"

I thought I was going to have to turn around to go back to the house to give him CPR!

***Have I ever mentioned that I've been somewhat of a rebel my entire life? I try not to be; I just can't help myself sometimes!***

I'm such a bad blogger

2007-02-10T22:12:00.000-05:00

I know. I know. I need to keep this thing more current. Life just seems to get in the way sometimes.

I'm still trying to maintain my sanity, at least what little I have left. It's been difficult lately. DH hurt himself while working out at the gym and rather than going to the hospital as advised, he insisted that Katelyn, who was at the gym with him, drive him home. Now up until this time, Katelyn has only driven my car. And even that takes much encouragement because she really would rather not learn to drive at all. But DH drove his truck to the gym that day. Katelyn was already upset and worried about "that loud pop in Dad's chest" and when she got outside and remembered they were in the truck, she just about cried. But DH encouraged her with "You'll do fine. It's just like driving Mom's car. Just take me home."

We live in the mountains. From town to our house is nothing but winding country roads with nothing along the sides of the roads except trees and steep embankments...not an optimal environment to learn truck driving skills. She drove the truck out of town with no problems; but coming around one of the curves on the county road, one of the wheels dropped off the pavement. She overcompensated and jerked the wheel back, creating an entire chain reaction of panicked responses, not only of her own but from DH also. DH attempted to take the wheel and yelled at her to brake. She hit the gas instead of the brake and jerked the wheel, with him attached to it, the opposite direction. Needless to say, DH's ribs took another beating inside the truck on the ride home.

The end result was Katelyn announcing she is never driving again. DH announced he's never riding again. The truck is going to be fine. However, I'm not sure the occupants will be, at least not emotionally! DH finally went to the hospital to find out he was bruised up and had ripped muscles in his chest and around his ribs. He was ordered to be off work, on light duty at home, with no lifting, no extensive standing or sitting until at least mid-month. We made it a week before I started complaining to the doctor that if he didn't release DH to go back to work I was going to kill him!

Men are such big babies when they're down anyways. But my DH is far worse than most. He gives "cabin fever" an entirely new meaning! Here is the chronicles leading up to his return to work this week:

Day 1: He spent most of it griping, complaining, pacing, sitting, flipping TV stations, playing on the computer, complaining about noise, complaining about the weather, stomping to the refrigerator and complaining there was nothing there, then repeating all the above again and again.
(And why in the heck does a sick man suddenly become blind when looking in a refrigerator?)

Day 2: Much of the same as Day 1, but now the real pain and soreness has moved in. Not as much pacing on this day, but more time in bed along with additional complaints that the sheets are tangled up, the comforter is too hot or too cold and never stays on the bed right. The pillows are all wrong. The lighting in the bedroom is all wrong. And there's nothing on TV.
(I guess the "sick man refrigerator blindness" strikes when the TV is turned on too? Over 100 stations of satellite TV and he can't see a thing!)

Day 3: The girls dug out some old movies that DH hadn't watched in a while. Most of the day was spent watching movies, playing on the computer, and sleeping. Not too bad......until the snow started.

Days 4-5: We've had snow, sleet and rain and some wickedly cold nights around here. DH had to be the macho man and take care of his family....just in case we lost electricity. He went down to the garage and fiddled with the generator. Then he went down to the well and checked it out. Then he checked the fire in the stove at least twice hourly. He ran extra water into all the jugs, pitchers and containers he could find in the house. He refilled all the kerosene lanterns/lamps and put matches next to the candles. The he fiddled with the generator some more. Then checked the well again, and then the fire....getting us prepared to be months without heat, light or power. But hey, it kept him busy! :)

Days 5-6: DH wanted me to call out of work due to the weather. But I can't do that. When the weather gets bad, things at work get even crazier. Besides, I needed to get out of the house anyways. I don't think I could have taken another day of his preparations around the house. Once I had finally convinced DH that I was going to work, and there was no negotiation on it, he began to complain that he was worried about me driving down that long, curvy driveway in the snow, and cautioned, "You better take the Beast (his dual 4 WD with a lift kit, manly type toy) just in case."

Now, we're not talking about a New York style blizzard followed by an ice storm. We had snow on the driveway....simple snow! I've taken my car through far worse on many occasions. That car could probably get down that driveway in a snowstorm without a driver! But he just kept on and on and on and on about how careful I needed to be because he was so worried about me trying to get down the snow-covered driveway and about what would happen if I got stuck somewhere. (Did I mention that all the roads were cleared by noon the previous day?) So I relented and agreed to drive the Beast. A little overkill, if you ask me, and a waste of gas, but I didn't need to give him anything else to worry about.

So I went out to warm up the Beast. Here's the "before" picture:

My lottery/mystery solved (Part 2)

2007-01-20T00:05:00.000-05:00

To preface this debate, and probably at the risk of making myself look even more foolish than I present normally, I’ll give you a little history on my car. Men have always been fascinated by my car. I’ve never quite understood why. It’s a 10 yr old, basic burgundy all-purpose Volvo that I bought used 3 yrs ago with 30K miles on it from a little old lady who felt she could no longer drive. It’s what my teen DDs claim looks like and is “an old lady car.” But it’s reliable and safe, which are the important factors to me. The car was also in exceptionally good condition. She had been well cared for, had not a scratch on her and had obviously been carefully stored in a garage. This car had obviously been this little old lady’s “baby.” (Now, knowing what I know, I'd really like to get to know that 81 yr old woman better! *LOL*)

But when I take my car in for tire rotations, service & maintenance or just to have something checked, or even when I stop for gas, I quite often have a male walk over, or one who has been under the hood or has started her up, comment, “DANG! This baby is sweeeeeeet!” It’s usually the under 50 males that have such reactions to the car. It’s a basic Volvo, I swear! No fancy paint job, no fancy interior, no glass packs or 4 barrels, just an “old lady Volvo.” I thank them for the compliment and drive off thinking, “I just don’t get it!”

The only unique thing about my car is that it has two extra buttons on it. One little silver toggle switch on the dash…I never did figure out what it was for and have played around with it, flipped it back and forth, multiple times. Nothing happens. (or so I THOUGHT) Never did figure it out but finally assumed that the original owner must have had a CD changer or something in it that was removed before I bought it. The other button is that “winter sport mode” switch that I mentioned earlier that took me almost a year to figure out. It’s kind of like a cross between 4 wheel drive and “low gear range” on a truck. I know it’s NOT really 4WD. But if I flip into this mode on a mountain in bad weather, it feels like it makes the roads clear up, level up, and straighten up; and the bad weather magically goes away. Really kewl button! I just never did figure out that little silver one.

The only other unique thing about my car is that it appears to be haunted. Or at least that’s to what I blamed it before this week. Let’s see, there was the time, a few months after I bought her, when I couldn’t find my keys and had to be at a meeting, so I took DH’s keys and headed out to work. A couple of miles down the road, I reached down to flip the fog lights on and must have hit the wrong switch or something and the car started beeping at me. I couldn’t figure out where the heck the beeping was even coming from. A minute or two later, the beeping got louder and faster. Then the emergency flashers came on. Then the door locks all went down. Then the car just shut down and died. It wouldn’t restart, wouldn’t even turn over. It wouldn’t unlock. And the darned thing wouldn’t even let me take the key out of the ignition! I had to call for help, and crawl into the backseat and into the trunk to pull the emergency release to get the doors open! Then the hood latch locked down and wouldn’t release to let me open the hood to attempt to jump the car. After the car was towed and “reset” by the dealer, my key would no longer work….wouldn’t even fit into the door or ignition. I had to order an entire new set of keys. REALLY WEIRD!

The car allows me to drive her during daylight with the doors unlocked. But if I get in her after dark, all the doors automatically lock down the minute I close the door. It used to creep me out. But I finally decided that it must be equipped with some kind of safety sensor? But it drives DH nuts. He unlocks the doors. The doors lock back down. He hits “unlock”; they relock. I just laugh and say “She doesn't know you and is trying to make sure I’m safe; so you have to leave the locks alone.” He would just growl at me and roll his eyes. (Yeah, let's see if he rolls his eyes at me anymore when I tell him that! *LOL*)

When I first bought it, I couldn’t get out of the car with it running because it would automatically lock down when I shut the doors. I tried EVERYTHING to prevent it….every danged button and setting on that car….nothing worked. I finally started carrying an extra key. But I stopped using it after about a month because I started noticing that as long as I was warming the car up at home between the hours of 5am and 9am, it wouldn’t lock me out. It was as if the car had figured out that it was ok to idle during those times because I was at home in my own driveway?

Then there was the event just last month when DH took the car to have the tires rotated. The car started beeping at him as he pulled into the tire store. DH stepped out of the car, leaving the key in the ignition and popped the hood. He then attempted to pull the cable off the battery to stop the beeping. As he did, the door closed and all the locks popped down. He then borrowed a “jimmy stick” to try to unlock the door and open it. (Geez, was that ever a mistake!) The horn started blowing, the lights started flashing (and the battery was supposedly unhooked). When he attempted again to open the hood, the hood was locked down and wouldn’t release. He finally called me at work and told me to come back home and see if I could unlock the car. When I put MY key in the car, everything stopped and went back to normal. I laughed it off as “This car and me, we’ve developed a relationship and understanding…..she KNOWS who she belongs to….DH, ya just gotta learn how to train a car right!”

Now, never did it occur to me that there might have been a perfectly logical reason for all this. Never did I think to ask anybody WHY my car did these things. And I sure didn’t want anyone to think I was delusional when they heard me trying to explain all this. And I guess along the way, mechanics never thought to tell me why these things kept happening to me because they assumed that if I bought the car and drive it regularly, I would KNOW about my own car. So this might shed some light into why I became so frustrated with my mechanic this week.

Frank: ….but it could be the “Street Toys” if you’re leaving them on for long periods of time and not driving the car, or maybe somebody is messing with your car and your Street Toys are reacting to it.
Me: Frank, what the heck are you talking about? So you think somebody is draining my battery or something?
Frank: No, I’m just saying that I can’t service your Street Toys. You’ll have to have them checked by whomever installed them. But you can check your remote or run a scan on your computer and see if anything looks abnormal. If not, take it back to the installer to check, just in case.
Me: What installer? Everything on that car is original except for the oil, filters, tires, battery and the axle you just put on it.
Frank: No, the Street Toys are not original.
Me: What the heck are Street Toys?!?!
Frank: Your remote system
Me: I don’t have a remote system!
Frank: Yes you do…the computer system on your car that you work from your remote control, you know….
Me: Frank! I don’t even have a FOB! You’re getting my car mixed up with someone else’s. I drive that one right there….that burgundy car, right there….(pointing out the window to my car)
(Frank’s wife walks in and comments): Oh wow, you’re the lady who owns that sweeeeeet thannnng?!? I LOVE that car! I’ve been trying to talk Frank into getting me one of those systems for my car!
Me: WHAT SYSTEM!?!?!
Mrs. Frank: Your Street Toys! You know…..that little button you pushed this morning in your house while you were drinking your coffee to de-ice the doors and windows, start your car, warm it up…heck without that, you would have been outside in the cold like the rest of us.
Me: I WAS outside, with a blow dryer, trying to open my frozen car door! I don’t have any flippin’ remotes or magic buttons!!

After several minutes of this confusion and frustration, I finally convinced Frank that I really was totally lost. So he took me around to the lift/bay and showed me this little black box that was attached over next to my engine, down in between a bunch of wires, barely visible between all those hoses and belts. Then he followed one of the wires and showed me where it led into my car to that mysterious silver switch on the dash……now known as the “Emergency Street Toy Override Switch.” Geez, and I was beginning to think it was a bomb!!! ~sigh~

I now know the purpose of the mysterious silver switch……the one that can reset my car, (with the proper secret code put into the stereo with those station memory buttons that I naively thought were just for my radio). It was the switch for those times when I’ve changed keys and/or drivers and confused the car and made it think it was being stolen and to prevent it from going into “defense mode” and shutting down the entire car and locking down the thief inside! It's that same button that with the use of the proper key in the door can shut off the alarm system when it’s beeping and flashing the lights. That same button caused one of Frank’s staff to laugh hysterically and comment, “Geez, you really didn’t know you have this Toy system on this thing and really don’t know the code for it?!? It’s a good thing you never lost your keys or played with that switch or hit it while you were driving because you would have been broke down on the side of the road, locked in your car and would have never figured out what to do!”

***Yeah, that would have been the pits on a foggy morning. I would have had to crawl out through the trunk, huh?***

So, after a 10 minute explanation of everything that little black box, along with a CD for my computer and a little remote control can do, I stood in utter shock. Then the reality started kicking in.....
You mean to tell me that for the past 3 years I have been able to start my car from my computer or from a remote control key chain? And I can set the temperature that I want it to be from inside my office? And it will defrost the doors and windows with the push of a button without ever touching the car? And that my key tells my car who to expect and what my driving habits are? And this box, determines from that if it’s really ME driving? And there’s an elaborate alarm system on it that will lock down the doors, hood and trunk to keep somebody from disabling it? And if they get past that, it will lock a thief down inside my car? And that there’s a timer on this thing that I can set to my own desires? AND that there’s an elaborate lighting system on it where I can choose my interior colors and under the dash colors and lights under the seats and even under the car that I never even knew existed?!?! And I can locate my car from my computer if my kids drive it or it gets stolen?!?!

So my car really does have a relationship with me?? And it really did know when DH was driving it rather than me?!? HOLY COW!!!!

In other words, I’m really NOT driving an "old lady car" but really instead driving a “sweeeeeeeet Street Toy” and never knew it?!?!

Now where the heck do I get one of those little remote control key chain thingies and that CD for my computer?!? I WANT IT ALL AND I WANT IT NOW!

:( I feel like I've won the lottery (part 1)

2007-01-19T07:28:00.000-05:00

with just a couple of minute little challenges.....I didn't know it until yesterday; and now I can't find it!! ~sigh~growl~sigh~
Maybe y'all can help?

Yesterday morning I went out to start my car and nearly broke my neck trying to get down the deck stairs that were iced over. Ok, this was a major aggravation for me because I put those "no freeze, no skid" black rubbery-stuff tread pads down on all those steps last Fall. Do you think it helped? No, the ice froze right over them! Then I got to my car and couldn't get the doors open because they were iced over. This really aggravated me because I'm standing out there battling with a frozen car (that I bought used 3 yrs ago from a little old lady who could no longer drive it...but more about that later) that's parked in front of, outside of, a 3 car garage. DH is gonna hear about this one again tonight!

Now, to clarify, we can't put the car in the garage because DH has his workshop set up in there on one side. The other side is storage for all the furniture and household stuff that came from his house, that we didn't use in my house, when we got married.
And as further clarification of this next part, I've returned a brand new battery to Auto Zone twice in the past 6 months because the new batteries don't seem to be holding up. I keep complaining about it; but hey, they're under warranty so I'll keep exchanging them until I get one that does seem to hold up. Auto Zone, on the other hand is getting rather testy with me, and insist that there is something wrong with my car that is "zapping the hell outta our batteries."

OK, back to getting off to work this morning.....
I stood out there mumbling and grumbling about the cold and not having access to the warm garage as I angrily waved my trusty blow dryer along the door to melt the ice. I finally got into my car and thought:
PLEASE start this morning. I know it's cold out here but I really gotta get to work. Dear Battery, please don't fail me now!

Hmmmm, one great thing I can say about these batteries, they always seem to work great in bad weather! It's just in good weather, after sitting for a day or two without being driven, that they can't seem to start the car. Isn't that odd?!? And what's even odder is that when they go, they take the entire electrical system with it. Everytime I change one of those heavy-duty, way too expensive, batteries, I have to take my car over to the shop to have the electrical system reset and recoded.

So I finally got myself and the car (yes, both at the same time) headed toward work. About half of my drive is winding country roads (that are now icy )going over the mountain. So I kicked in my trusty "winter sport mode" button and trucked right along in my little car as if it were a fine Spring day. I just love my little car! BUT, long about the 13th curve around the mountain, I noticed a slight "popping" sound as I went into the curve. ***Hmmmm, that wasn't there before; I hope that wasn't my CV joint. Nah, it's just the cold weather*** It didn't pop in the next curve so I turned the radio back up. But then it happened again when I turned out onto the main road. ***Hmmm, now THAT can't be good!*** So I made an executive decision to be late to work and stop by my mechanic's shop on the way in to see if he felt I needed to be worried.

It wasn't good news, but it could have been worse. The CV boot was torn and the CV joint was starting to be affected. For about $250 in labor (to take the axle apart to fix the joint and boot) and about $40 in parts, they could fix it. But as Frank explained to me, the car is 10 yrs old which means the other CV boot is going to eventually go too which will mean doing it all again :( The other option is to wait until they both go to save some labor costs. But that's sometimes somewhat risky. Or he can order a whole new axle with all the CVs and junk already new on it for about $150 plus $150 in labor. Only $10 more, much faster and easier, and remove the future need of return for the other 10 yr old CV boot. So I left the car and took Frank's car to work. But before I left, I asked him about the battery. He said there was a possibility that if my alternator was going out or something was haywire in the charging system, it COULD eat up a battery. (Of course, his explanation was much longer and more detailed; but that is the basic summary of it) But he said while the guys were waiting for the new axle to be delivered, he would hook up the handy-dandy computer system and get down into the charging system and see if he could find anything.....

The good news was that he could find nothing wrong with my charging system and/or the alternator. ***See! Those fools down at Auto Zone were wrong! I KNEW it! It's not MY car; it's THEIR batteries!*** Both he and the computer said all was in great shape! :) The bad news was that he was trying to explain another possibility for me to have checked that he couldn't service and I couldn't comprehend. So I argued with the poor man, only to look like a fool and be completely ecstatic all at the same time! The debate went something like this...

(to be continued because I have to get into to work this morning and then make some phone calls to follow up on my "feels like the lottery" mystery from yesterday)

Scrapbook Freebies

2007-01-11T08:25:00.000-05:00

I am finally putting together all my pictures from the past couple of months and have made my own theme kits to match similar sets of pictures. This is a chain for one of my pages:

This is an individual link to the chain:

Unfortunately, I've still not mastered saving a transparent PNG file. But have both of these in a transparent PSP file. If you'd like one of these, I'll be happy to send them to you in psp format if you request in my comments area and leave an email address. This freebie is available only through Jan 15.

Let me know what you think! :)

Putting it all back together (Part 2)

2007-01-07T15:22:00.000-05:00

With all the parts and pieces now upstairs, the doctor put up the first shelf into those first two industrial strength heavy duty stainless steel brackets. But now, I have raw wood facing me under a white wood shelf. I asked him to take it down until I could paint it to match the other shelves. He diagnosed me with OCD about it and saw no reason to paint these; afterall, "it's just a closet."

He then attempted to install the new tracking onto the adjacent wall. The studs weren't lined up to match the width of these new tracks. So we had to stop again so he could find some "anchors" to go behind where his tracks should be. My question was, "But if my original tracking already fits on the studs, why don't we just use it rather than putting up new tracks?" I don't know why I failed to foresee his reply that the stainless steel industrial strength tracks for the stainless steel industrial strength brackets are much better. So up went the anchors and the new tracks in their new locations. The fine doctor sent me (still the scrub nurse) for the new industrial strength stainless steel brackets to go into his new industrial strength tracks.

The next challenge(let's see, am I on #4 now?):
Those lovely stainless steel brackets won't fit into the new industrial strength tracks! Don't ask me why...we both tried. They simply were not made to work together. So back he went to the hardware store to complain about the idiots who made the bracket hooks a different size than the track holes. (They really were different sizes with some of them more different than others!)

My handy-dandy handiman returned with "even better" brackets, still stainless steel but with a new and improved "easy clean" black paint coating on them.
ME: WHY THE HECK DIDN'T YOU GET WHITE IF YOU WERE GOING TO GET THEM COLORED?!?
HIM: Because these don't come in white!

So up went the new black brackets into the industrial tracks; and the first two shelves were then up on the wall. During the installation of the third shelf, I stepped away to get a coke. Just as I opened the refrigerator, I heard a tremendous crash-bang in the closet, then a few choice words said in the normal handiman-gone-wild tone.

Challenge #5: It appears that the "anchors" won't hold such new-fangled, heavy duty, industrial strength, stainless steel tracks and brackets because they pulled out of the wall and came tumbling to the floor. It also appears that my "basic shelves" don't hold up well when crashing to the floor in the midst of such heavy duty industrial marvels. And of course my box of 20 Mule Team Borax along with my multiple boxes of baking soda that were on the top shelf held up no better; the boxes burst and sprayed white powder all over the house when they hit the floor.

Thank God nobody was hurt. But I then had a new fangled vocabulary-challenged handiman sporting a new chic color of white across his sexy handiman duds. What a sight to behold!

He ultimately decided to use my white brackets (although he'd deny it, I'm sure it was to match his new white attire) and my white tracks to put up the new shelves he had to go cut in the garage. By this time, he had decided I would NOT get corner shelves since they "will just cause more stress on the closet" (what the heck??) and proceeded to finish the closet HIS way since of course MY plans are what initiated this mess. He then decided that "a few" of his things were to go into the closet so that he wouldn't have to run back and forth to the garage when he needed something.

I gave up my plans. Mr. Fix-it refuses to return to the hardware store and is sorting the closet now. And his new look must be affecting his eyesight because he doesn't seem to be alarmed that he's shelving food items mixed with hardware nor that the closet shelves need paint. He says he just wants to get all this stuff out of sight and "we'll worry about the rest later."

I'll be redoing this next Saturday while he is at work. Until then, please don't visit. The house is a wreck!

Putting it all back together (Part 1)

2007-01-07T14:33:00.000-05:00

How difficult can it be to measure out the walls and install some L-shaped shelving? And since the pantry and closet back up to each other, I can use the same plan and measurements from one into the other. Right? Why would I have thought that anything could be simple?!?

Well, remember that I told you about my biggest challenge in my goal of subtraction? Somebody, and I won't name names, always comes up with a "bigger and better" plan than mine and has to put his two cents into the equation. (Yes, Tim Allen's Home Improvement character lives right here in my home!)

My plan was to use the shelves from the closet, cut them to complete the pantry, add the white tracks and white brackets, and voila...a neat, tidy, white pantry. Then I can put up brackets and tracks on the other side of the same wall, add more white shelves and use the laundry room closet for all my cleaning supplies and linens. So I washed the walls and floors and started measuring and marking my tracks. I tried to start at the top and work my way down, one shelf at a time, putting supplies back up as I went. Here's a pic of my initial work (my first two rows) before "help" arrived:

I didn't think it was looking too bad. In fact, I was quite satisfied with it.

Then my no-names-mentioned, home improving, Tim Allen-type person decided he knew a better way and could do it twice as fast. The results were staggering to put it lightly!

My choice of shelving: the closet kits with basic white tracks and 12 inch white brackets with basic white 12 inch shelves...same as before, but run all the way across one wall and halfway down and across the other wall to leave room for the taller items like the washer and dryer, vacuum cleaner, brooms, mops, etc.

His choice: the super industrial strength stainless steel tracking and brackets with standard white shelves. He even went out and bought these supplies for me. What a guy!

He was pretty smug about all this until he put it up and the shelves wouldn't fit in those 12 inch brackets that really weren't 12 inches at all, but more like 11 5/8 inches. But no worries, I was told, he could just trim up those shelves to fit those brackets. (Now why do all that when my standard white brackets were working just fine? Or why not just take the darned stainless steel ones back and exchange for the cheapie white metal brackets?) Well, I was told, "because these are better." So the entire project was put on hold awaiting all this trimming and cutting that had to be done.

I TRIED to go play with my digital scrapbooking while he worked, in between all the "Honey, come here" and "Honey, hold this, hand me that" and "Now, put this there, no over here, well, maybe try this, no try that"s that kept me jumping up and down out of my chair and running back and forth to the garage. I finally gave up. I spent the afternoon playing Home Improvement Scrub Nurse to the Dr. Tim Allen Character. Do you think he wanted to hear any of my concerns or suggestions along the way? I even tried the sweet, suggestive wifely voice, "Honey, maybe we should..."
All I got was "NO, just hang on; I know what I'm doing."

So with all the new and improved equipment ready, we carried it all out of the garage and upstairs to the closet....

Subtracting Little Joe

2007-01-07T11:19:00.000-05:00

Well, I've finally mapped out Little Joe's travel route. And I have spent the weekend making this route my first subtraction goal of the year. He jumps from the tree next to the back deck, over onto the roof over the kitchen, then into a hole he has made between the roof and the gutter, on into the attic above the loft.
He had quite a storage cache of nuts in the attic, right next to the wall that comes down between the laundry room closet and the pantry.

I noticed that we had that darned Georgia clay staining the floor next to my file cabinet. I couldn't figure out how we were getting clay onto the floor in the closet, but decided to pull out the file cabinet to clean the floor.

Guess what I found? Yet another cache of nuts behind this file cabinet. And just look what else I found...one of his little squirrelly doors:

It appears that he has been running down this wall and has made himself a little door into both the pantry and the laundry room closet. So I pulled everything out of the pantry and the laundry room closet and had no place to go with all of it at once. So our living room, corridor and hallway now look like part of a redneck thrift store! lol

I then proceeded to clean out both areas decided to put in more efficient storage shelves. After a trip to the hardware store, I was ready to put it all back together....

The Year of Subtraction

2007-01-04T19:53:00.000-05:00

My CEO stated that this would be the "year of subtraction" at work. She plans to reduce paperwork, one way or the other. She plans to reduce repetition and recidivism. I can hardly wait; we really need to do this. It would make life so much simpler and much more enjoyable.

I plan to do the same at home this year. Of course I claimed this same goal last year, just different words. Last year was to be my year of simplification, to get rid of all the stuff in the house that we didn't need, cut back on all the "clutter" in the house, in my mind, in our lives, and give us more time, room and energy for the things we enjoy most. But I never got it done.

One of the biggest challenges is that of the four people remaining in this house, none of us can agree on the priorities. Now, with the girls, I can pull rank and just make an executive decision. Afterall, I am the mother! With DH, it's a little more complicated. He's all for reduction and getting rid of non-essentials, seldom used or long ago overused items. So I can start cleaning things out. And the keyword in that sentence is "START."

You see, the problem with starting is that it must be finished. Otherwise, it becomes a bigger mess. When I clean out the girls' clothes and package them for the Thrift Store, the boxes must go somewhere. That somewhere is my living room until one of us can take the boxes out. DH will then come home from work (he comes in as I'm going out) and decide these boxes just simply can't be in the living room in his way, so he moves them to the porch or garage. If he moves them to the porch, I guarantee you it will rain that day! It has happened far too many times. If he moves them to the garage, he will decide that they will be in the way of his tools, and will then change his mind and return them to the house. And guess where they will go? Right back into the girls' closets!

If I clean out larger items to make more room, within hours DH will plan a purchase of something to replace the disposed item and fill the space. And I guarantee you that the replacement will take up more space than the disposal! There is no subtraction in this house....just swaps! ~sigh~

I think what I need is a week off work, here at the house, all by myself. That's the only way this will work. Now to plan how I'd do that......
hmmmmm.......

Happy New Year!

2007-01-02T08:09:00.000-05:00

Hope y'all had a great holiday and hope your new year brings good health, good cheer and many blessings.

I took off work for past ten days and have enjoyed being home. It has allowed me some extra time to do some "catch up" and some thinking about where I've been this past year and where I want to go this year. But more on that later.

I also spent some time working on my scrapbooks and made a couple of new digital scrapbook kits. I'm thinking of posting some of the parts for free downloads but need to find a more efficient way of doing it. I'll be checking into that this month. I also need to learn how to save my PSP files as transparent pngs. Otherwise, all my freebies will be in PSP or JPG format. I use that darned wizard on my PSP; but my saved PNG pages still come out with saved backgrounds where the transparencies should be. I still can't figure out what I'm doing wrong with these. If anyone has any words of wisdom or ideas, please email me.

Just One Voice

2006-12-11T22:30:00.000-05:00

Katelyn came home tonight disgusted and frustrated, as she often does, over her day at school. She loves education, loves her teachers and craves to learn. She just doesn't like the other kids at school. She has complained about this since her first day of high school. And you know it's pretty bad when a kid complains about how other kids treat both teachers and peers.

Tonight I listened to her vent again and tell stories of behaviors that would have gotten any of us paddled or at the least sent to the principal which would then mean trouble when we got home. She's not talking about Columbine-type events...at least not yet! She's complaining about vulgar mouths, chaos and disrespect. Then she commented, "Oh Mom, I wish they would just put discipline back in school! And if I talked like some of these kids or acted like some of these kids, I'd expect to get whacked BIG TIME. That's what we need...a few whacks. I wish there was something I could do to change my school."

So we talked for a while. I asked her if she felt that strongly about it, had she ever considered talking to someone else about it at school. She said "Yes, every day! I'm the only one in class who will speak up for the teachers. There's so much more I could learn if the other kids would just sit down and shut up and stop arguing with the teachers, stop distracting others, and stop throwing things. The whole place is out of control! Why don't they just grab these kids up by the shirt and march them outside and call a parent?!?" I explained because there have been too many parents who would sue, blaming the teachers and every other adult along the way for their "perfect child" getting a wrinkled shirt in school.

Katelyn: Well, let me tell you if one of my teachers called MY parents, it would be an ugly sight! And I sure wouldn't do it again!
Me: But YOUR parents hold YOU responsible for behaving in school as we expect you to behave at home. Some of these kids act the same way at home; and it's "ok" with their parents. And some of the kids act out at school and the parents would never believe it even if they were called. So what's a teacher to do?
Katelyn: Then the school should be whacking parents too! I'm tired of going in everyday and spending most of my day defending teachers from disrespectful, mean teenagers when I could be learning.
Me: Why are YOU defending teachers? The teachers should be coming down on these kids, NOT YOU!
Katelyn: They TRY. But the kids buck right back up and start mouthing off, even daring the teacher to do something about it. When I can't take no more, I stand up and get up in their faces and say "Maybe the teacher can't do nothing about it, but I sure as heck will, now sit down and shut up!"
Me: Awww, Katelyn, you can't be doing that!
Katelyn: Well, somebody has to do it!

After some more discussion about my concerns about her trying to be the classroom disciplinarian, I finally asked, "What else could you do to get the word out, as a teenager, that "this ain't cool" without trying to be the adult?" She hem-hawed around for a while and finally stood up and exclaimed, "I GOT IT! I know what I'm going to do!" And off she ran to the laptop.

She started a letter "To All Local Adults." She plans to send it to the principal, school board and the local paper. This could get interesting!?! I'll keep you posted.

Breeding like rabbits or just a zoo?

2006-12-11T22:12:00.000-05:00

I'm beginning to think my front lawn is a breeding ground. We've always had trouble with rabbits; but this is ridiculous! I don't know if the recent cold snap has brought them all out, or if they're trying to celebrate the holidays with us? One night last week, I had to hit my brakes 3 times on the way up the driveway to avoid hitting the little tikes hopping across the drive. Tonight, as I turned the corner around the mailbox, they came hopping out all over the place! And they seemed to hop in rhythm to our Christmas lights. Then as I got up to the deck to park the car I noticed that one of them remained...just wasn't going to give up his dinner I guess? The problem exists in the fact that the darned rabbit was trying to eat my poinsettias around my bird bath. They're fake, not real, just silk!

Then as I got out of my car, I glanced over towards the woods at the side of the house to see why the dog was barking that direction. There stood a deer! DH has gone hunting several times this season and has come back with NIL. This sudden urge came over me to "show him how it's done" so I begged and pleaded with Bubba to stop barking as I ran into the house for my gun. Then I ordered Bubba to stop barking and tried the "all the way down NOW" command. Neither worked. The deer was gone when I got back outside. But I wanted SO BAD to be able to have a deer hanging out back when DH comes home from work in the morning. I can see the disgusted look on his face now! *LOL* But the only sure thing I could get tonight appeared to be a rabbit. I guess I could; but somehow hanging up one of those rabbits just doesn't seem like it would have the same impact.

I wish someone could tell me

2006-12-08T20:18:00.000-05:00

how to raise an adult child?? And tell me what causes a college graduate who in her youth was always a good student, responsible, smart, bright, and beautiful to wake up one day and decide as an adult to completely destroy her life? What makes a beautiful young woman turn into the very type individual whom you would never allow around your other children or trust in your home?

Addiction.

It's an ugly word and an even uglier disease. And it hurts like hell not to be able to do anything to stop it, to know that anything I do only enables and makes it worse. And then to watch her not only destroy herself but then attempt to destroy me and the rest of her family for not "helping" her as she demands, is absolutely more than any parent should ever experience.

Still battling Little Joe

2006-12-08T20:11:00.000-05:00

He was last seen on the laundry room shelf above the washer and dryer. We have determined that he absolutely must be coming in and out of the house. We still can't figure out where. Looks like we're going to have to break down and pay to have someone come remove him :(

Update on Little Joe and his insignificance

2006-12-05T22:06:00.000-05:00

No signs of the little guy on Sunday and Monday. I had finally convinced myself that he had managed to find his way back outside.
At least until I got home tonight....

I had a rotten day at work today. It's a full moon, I know. But I still will never understand how grown professional adults can be such high maintenance. On days like today I walk out of the building, sit down in my car and just collapse, wondering how in the world I ended up working in a daycare center. I don't know what happened this week, but clients are acting out; and staff are unusually stressed and starting to act out themselves. Nobody seems to be thinking clearly or rationally at this time. And all I want to do is pull out my hair while hiding in a closet somewhere!

I came home tonight, two hours later than I had planned due to the challenge of escaping the building without 10 people stopping me for the perpetual "I need help" request. Then my car decided to react to the cold or the full moon; I haven't decided which yet. Three different lights came on in my dashboard; and my heater is making a horrible rattling noise. I came home drained and exhausted to find my 14 yr old with a low grade fever and sinus infection and the 16 yr old with a severe toothache, both in ugly moods griping at each other about the other one being gripy. I walked into my bedroom, in utter exasperation to put down my purse and coat, turned on the light and heard a shuffle over around my dresser.

Yep, Little Joe is back! And ya know what? I don't even care! He can have my house. He can have the Christmas tree and whatever else he wants to terrorize. He can trash it all! I'll just shovel it all out into the trash and start over again. I'm tired of fighting animals. I'm tired of people who are always fighting. I'm tired of phones, cars and bickering teenagers. I'm tired of bickering with my DH about why I am always late getting home and why I'm always exhausted. Did I mention that I'm just downright TIRED!?! I think I'll go to bed and pray that I wake up with a better attitude tomorrow. I hope so because right now my attitude stinks!

Ballad of Little Joe (Part 5)

2006-12-02T11:30:00.000-05:00

Saturday AM: No signs of our little varmit this morning. I slept on the couch trying to listen for any noises in the loft. I woke up around 5am to DH asking, "Honey, what are you doing sleeping in here? Why didn't you come to bed?"
Me: I stayed up to play with the ghosts
DH: Honey, you're starting to worry me! Now go to bed and get some sleep.

After he left, I went up to the loft and looked around. Nothing looked disturbed and no signs of our guest. As soon as the girls get up, I'll start moving stuff around up there and see if I can find a ghost or our uninvited guest.