A good save, lessons learned, & the wonders of the state fair

So, today's post is about some interesting things I've learned lately. It might be a little longer and more photo-laden than usual, but there's a reason, so bear with me! Or don't, if you don't want to. :-)

A little more than a week ago, before the kids

went back to school, we went to the state fair. Well, to be clear, Lloyd and I went to the state fair, before the kids went back to school and we lost our dogsitters. I'm sure I mentioned that last year, we took all three kids to the state fair, and our excursion lasted about an hour, not

counting drive time. Anna was marginally interested, but the boys moped and bitched and

moaned so much that I was sick to my stomach

pretty quickly, so I insisted on a rapid exit.

We learn from our mistakes. This year, the two of us had a wonderful date-day to the fair to look

at all the wonderful things they have at state fairs... funky kids' artwork (the artwork is funky,

not the kids - as far as I know), prize-winning produce, free trees (we got a redwood) and cows. That kind of stuff.

Well, the first lesson we learned this year is to get there early. We had a vet appointment for the doggies in the morning and just took our time meandering down to Sac for the fair, getting there somewhere around 2 in the afternoon. After spending a few minutes visiting with Carole and her GORGEOUS babies, who were in CA visiting from their home in Australia, Lloyd and

I headed off into the first complex of buildings near the entrance of the fair, where the kids' artwork was displayed and some of the year's theme displays were. It's a little circle of about 6

fairly small buildings, not big expo halls or anything. When we looked up, we'd been there for nearly 3 hours, and had only made it through 4 of those small buildings. Eeek!! The fair closes at 10, but some exhibits close at sundown, so you do the math.

Next year, we devote a whole day to the fair and arrive early. Check.

I was really almost stunned by the quality of the artwork on display in the kids' building though. I think that's where we spent the most time during those initial hours, looking at every last piece. And I'm not an art person, seriously. There are lots of friends and relatives out there who

can testify to that. But, this was really good stuff, so I took lots of photos, mainly to show Anna. She has quite a bit of artistic talent herself, and I wanted her to see what kinds of things other

kids her age were doing and winning prizes for at the fair.

The first things to really get my attention were "the cube things," as I am calling

them. What the hell was the assignment here? "Make a big ceramic cube, with feet, lots of 3D sculpture on top and 3 sides, and

one side must have a framed photo." I swear to you, that's about as close as I can figure it out!! Do any of YOU know what the hell these would be called? All I know is that they're majorly cool shit.

All the ceramics were majorly cool, like Mr. Turtle up there at the top, and Mr. Dumpty over here.

I'll sprinkle in some of the other cool pictures I took in

a little bit...but we're coming to the "good save" part of the story.

The next lesson that I learned is to never, ever, ever sit and delete huge bunches of photos off my camera while I'm out someplace, like, say, the state fair.

While I thought I was deleting photos in batches by date, like "12/25/08," I somehow managed to delete

every single picture I'd take up to that point at the fair. All the cube things, all the artwork, everything. Oh, and of course I didn't figure that out until I was at home, trying to retrieve the pictures for a blog post. Needless to say - not pleased.

Thanks to Daddy's suggestion, I finally quit pouting about it, and went searching on the internet for some sort of app that might be able to find the pictures buried amongst the flotsam and

metadata on the card. I'll be damned, but it worked.

The first program I tried was called Easeus. This one found a ton of pictures on the card, but it found all the older files, all the ones I really had wanted to delete, and none of the fair photos. The next app I came across is called ZAR, or Zero Assumption Recovery. It took forever, bringing up a screen very much like a defrag map, and busily working away until it actually found all 681 files on the card. I mean, it found stuff I had deleted months ago!

So, ZAR has my strong endorsement. I can't say it was perfect, because it

did bring some photos up with a huge gray section, like this one, that was supposed to be of Lloyd "licking" a giant lollypop on the Big Rock Candy Mountain. I'm not complaining at all though, because I thought all these pictures were goners!

I'm going to be kind to those of you who don't want to sift through all my lame photos to get to the end of the post...I'll limit myself to just a few

more! ;-)

SO, photo fiascos aside, the fair was a blast. There was so much there that

I would have loved to do that we just didn't have a lot of time for, and some things that would have bored Lloyd to tears that I would have loved to do. They had a farm section with produce growing taller than my head and I could have spent forever wandering through!

Also of note was the 9/11 Memorial. Several

pieces of steel from the towers were brought to Sacramento as part of a traveling memorial exhibit, and seeing them was powerful. These are BIG pieces of solid metal, and they're twisted, bent, folded and crushed like tissue paper!

Amazing. The memorial plaza also includes a huge

photo exhibit, replica of the towers and a campanile (bell tower) that rings on the hour.

The only thing I didn't get to see enough of at the

fair were the animals. We saw lots, true, including a calf who'd been born just that morning and tiny little piggies who were only a day old, and bunnies, and birds and chinchillas, and all manner of strange chickens. But, I'm a dork about wanting to walk around in the big livestock barns and look at all the cows and all the sheep and things like that.

When it was time for food, I scored and Lloyd struck out. He got very brave and decided to try the fair's newest specialty - the "zucchini weenie." This is a rather large zuke, hollowed out, with a hotdog stuck inside, a stick inserted, and then dipped in corndog batter and deep-fried. I shit you not. Unfortunately, he was very much not impressed. Bummer, really. There were all kinds of deep-fried weirdnesses to try and I almost did...but I got smart and stuck to the tried and

true goodies.

I found the tacos. Hallelujah, I found the tacos. Those of you who have been to the Alameda County Fair with me know about the tacos. They're legendary, and I have to have them. They're made from some very floppy corn tortillas, filled with stuff I can't identify (and don't want to) and wrapped in paper that they stick to. They fall apart and make a giant greasy mess and I love them madly. I have been known to go to the fair just to get the tacos.

And funnel cakes. :-) It was worth it. It was, in all, a way-too-long day for me in my current state, but I really had the most fun I've had in forever. I can't get away with doing too much, and I suffered for this one, as I mentioned in a previous post.

But I really had fun.

Well now, after boring you all to death with all of this, and making myself crave tacos, I think I'm

done. I've got a few more neato pictures to stick here at the end for those who are interested...

School time!

Whoo-hoo!!!

It's the most

wonderful time of the year....

Forget Christmas, I mean back to school!

When three children rise in the wee hours to scurry around with scowls on their faces, trying to remember how to eat breakfast in less than a half hour, or how to cram in as much computer time as possible without being late for the bus.... and then the house is left with those blissful sounds of silence and adults sighing with relief. Well, at least the one of us who's UP. ;-)

I'm not complaining though. My accustomed role as Stella's early morning companion changes somewhat now that school's back in, and I'm available to supervise the morning rush. It's pretty ok for all involved though - Stella loves having the kids around and the activity in the kitchen, and everyone stops to pet her as they fly by. I'm here to sign forms, answer questions, and be a general helper, like when someone sleeps through their alarm on the 2nd day of high school and is in a total flustered panic-rush. And when they leave, it's suddenly very, very quiet...the contrast is almost shocking.

It's only day three, but so far, so good. Conner is very pleased with the teachers and classes that he got for his sophomore year. The high school here has a funky schedule-picking concept called "Arena" wherein those above freshmen get to build their schedules themselves, picking their teachers even, and are about 90% guaranteed of getting what they pick out, barring some sort of administrative changes, of course. He got everything he planned out last spring, and four of his teachers are the same ones he had and liked a lot last year, so that works out well. One of those, his multimedia teacher, is the one who first accepted him into the class as a freshman (first time that ever happened - usually the class isn't open to freshmen at ALL!) and then groomed him to be sort of a TA *and* got him the gig over the summer videotaping another teachers wedding for real money. This is a good teacher to have on your side! I told him that if he gets good at the camera work as well as the editing, that could be a great little side job during the summer, hiring himself out as an affordable wedding videographer.

Trevor is cautiously happy with high school so far - so far as I can tell. He didn't get into media as a freshman (which I think secretly makes him INSANE, because for once he didn't get what he wanted and get to be an exception to the rule) and so he's actually starting Spanish before Conner does, which should prove interesting. The counselor actually told us (when we were doing Conner's scheduling) that the odds of a freshman getting into Spanish were slim, because all the juniors and seniors were clambering to get in after they'd served their two-year sentence in PE, which is why Conner didn't even try. He'll only get two years, but that's all the colleges require anyway. But, this is Trevor's first foreign language experience, and I'm genuinely curious to see how he does with it. He's brilliant in English, both technically and creatively, but I have no earthly idea if Spanish will come to him with the same facility. But overall, so far, so good.

Anna is perfectly thrilled with being a seventh grader. If you ask me, I think what thrills her the most is that she's the only Irwin in the school, with no big brothers with big shadows to hang over her. I don't blame her - she's the baby of the family, and has always had to follow behind the boys, and they leave some mighty big figurative footsteps. She was in tears at Trevor's graduation because he got so many medals, plaques and awards and she herself had only ever earned certificates. I never knew it was such a huge thing to her until then, but man, is it.

Now that I know how much it matters to her, I'm trying to help her earn some of those shiny things she wants so badly. I've told her to try and find out what all the awards are and what you have to do to earn them - things like CJSF (California Jr. Scholarship Federation, an honor society) and the Principal's Award, etc; they have about 20 different ones at this school - and then she can set some goals for her year. *I* personally don't get it....seriously. I can't wrap my mind around the idea of being desperate to earn a little gold disk on the end of a ribbon so badly that it makes me cry, but she is, and it does make her cry, so ok, by golly, I'll help her earn her little gold disks!!

But mainly, I think she's excited by the fact that she gets these two junior high years all to herself, and that is pretty cool. She'd never attended a school without at least one brother until we moved up here, when she was in 5th grade. Since Gridley has a middle school system (6-7-8) instead of junior high like Fremont did, as soon as we moved she got to be at the top of the food chain as a 5th grader, with no brothers above her, and man did she shine. Bright, sparkly shine!!

I have a very strong suspicion that these next two years will be much the same, so I'm really encouraging her to go for it. Join things, run for things, earn things, go, go, go! I think it will give her some much-needed confidence and ego boosting. She does pretty good in those areas these days anyway, don't get me wrong - she's a far cry from that little girl I met who thought she was ugly and dumb and I am SO happy about that - but a nearly-teenage girl can NEVER have too much confidence and ego boosting. Trust me.

ANYway, she's in 7th grade, and got into the multimedia class at her school, which is pretty rare for a 7th grader. That's one time where her big brothers came in handy - they were both stars in the media class as 8th graders, so at Trevor's graduation last year, the media teacher asked Anna if she wanted in and promised her a spot. Sweet!

As for me, I'm a tad tired, but otherwise not too horrible. I crammed in way too much end of summer fun last week (state fair, county fair, circus) and I'm trying to recover from it. I ended up lymphedema'd to a really ugly point, but it went away, thank god, and am generally really tired, achy and painful. Andy gave me cortisone injections in both hips last week, but then I went and walked on 'em, and now the right hip hurts almost as much as it did before the injection. Crap. And, I'm quite prolapsed, which is causing me more than a little problem in the bathroom and driving me insane. Really, if I had the option, I'd go into surgery tomorrow to have everything put back in place, because I'm going bonkers. Really bonkers.

But overall, I'm not going to complain too much. I certainly could, but I'm not going to. We have the daytimes to ourselves again, which means I can take the time I need to rest, dream up some new slow-cooker dinners, work on some small crafty things when my hands allow, and begin my new big hobby - obsessing over what to wear to my 20 year reunion.

That, folks, will keep me busy for a loooooooooong time...

It's been a rough week for dogs.

This is Sebastian. He was my Auntie Jeanne's baby boy, and we lost him today to a mysterious autoimmune condition.

After a whole lot of vet visits, tests and trips to the ER, his poor little body just couldn't fight it.

My aunt and uncle, my cousins and grandma are all deeply saddened by the loss of their sweet boy, and my heart just breaks for them. My whole life, my entire family has been just full of dogs and they have always been members of the family.

Another friend's dog, Tif's Sugar, is happily back at home where she belongs, after being missing for several incredibly sad days. This is a dog who's always looking around the corner for an open door; she's a runner, Tif says. A very kind stranger found her wandering without her tags, took her in, and gave her a home...but found the courage to bring her back to her family when he discovered who they were. Tif says he was a man who loves Boxers like Sugar especially, and had already named her, making it doubly hard for him to say goodbye to the companion he was falling in love with. This is a very, very good man, and the world needs many, many more like him.

So, it's been a rough week for dogs.

Mine are all fine, thank the deity of your choice, although Pea is starting to show her age, the thing that terrifies me the most. Stella seems to grow more every day , and get smarter and more interesting every day. Sparky is still the best little sidekick-budddy dog anyone could ever ask for. I am incredibly lucky right now, but I know that someday I will face the kind of pain and fear that Tif and now Jeanne have to deal with.

Knowing that makes me try harder to be present in every moment that I've got with them and enjoy every minute of them. My dogs are my best friends, my protectors and comforters and sidekicks and comic relief - like when Stella just now decided that licking Conner's ice cream bowl and spoon wasn't enough...so she grabbed and made off with the entire bowl. Like I said, she gets smarter every day. ;-)

Tonight, I have a massive migraine, which makes looking at this screen miserable, but I'm doing it anyway. I'm tired, and I'm sick to my stomach. I have severe pain in my hip, and pubic area and we won't even talk about the back of my neck. But I'm not going to bitch and moan tonight.

I'm counting my furry blessings tonight.

For Tif and her family, I'm relieved and happy that Sugar is home where she belongs. For Jeanne, John, Keinan, Erik and Grandma, my heart breaks right along with yours. I'm sad for all of you tonight, and I wish I could be there with you. Love you.

I'm not sleepy...Ok, fine, I'm lying, I am sleepy.

I'm sleepy. Very, very sleepy. Headache-y and sleepy. I'm the kind of sleepy where I start talking and saying things that don't make sense to anyone else, because what I'm talking about is happening in my dream and not in real life.

It confuses them. I can't imagine why.

Well, ok, I guess it confuses me a tad too. But mainly, it means I'm really damned tired and should be sleeping, but I'm trying NOT to be sleeping right now. My sleep patterns are utterly bizarre these days and I'm trying to get them back in line. I mean, up at 6, napping from 2-6 or 7 and then staying up till 2am is just not optimal.

************************************************************************************

Now aren't you glad I shared that? It was a battle I was destined not to win, so off to bed went I. And far, far better felt I when I was done with another epic nap. I was so exhausted and confused that I was having trouble remembering if it was am or pm even before I zonked out.

But, luckily, I took the nap, got up when I was supposed to, fed the doggies, and conjured dinner for the two kids at home with me in the form of a pizza delivery chick.

This, folks, is about as exciting as it gets these days - and part of the point that I'm trying to get to. I feel like I spend half my time sleeping and the other half my time trying not to be sleeping. That combination is creating some significant problems in my life right now. I mean, if my body wants a nap, it gets a nap. No problem there. I've learned not to argue with this body by now. However, there are things I want to DO when I'm awake instead of constantly feeling like I'm either groggy still waking up or dozing off before the next nap.

Yesterday I did manage a big step, a major milestone, whatever you want to call it: I knitted an entire row. Yup, that's an accomplishment right now. It's been so long since knitting didn't HURT that it's almost like I'm afraid to do it now.

I can't figure out if I'm afraid of the pain, or afraid I'm no good at it anymore, or what in hell I'm afraid of, but countless projects lay in stages of completion, neglected out of fear. Other projects, in other media, are sprinkled around too, some barely started, some not even that far. These are the things I thought I'd try since I "couldn't" knit, and I've wound up afraid of all of them too. Has the medical community got a term for fear of craft projects? (they probably do...)

Cancer stole a lot of things from me, but I never imagined it would take away that happiness and calm I'd found in yarn. I want it back, but I'm not doing very well at figuring out how. I know there's still going to be some level of pain, but I suspect that my tolerance and ability is giant leaps and bounds from where it was a couple months ago, based on my hand and finger capabilities doing other things.

Maybe if I sat down at the swift and ball winder, and wound all of the delicious luxury yarn I bought in Santa Cruz almost 9 months ago? Maybe if I pushed through and finished something, even something as tiny as a little knitted snail? Maybe if I organized my printed-out knitting patterns? Maybe if I quit writing about it and just sat down and did it?? :-)

I did try spinning for a short while last week and was very pleased with the outcome, physically and mentally, so maybe the "get off your ass and just do it" Nike-inspired approach is the way. I just want the incredible sensation of calm and happiness that I used to have the minute I picked up my needles! I've thought about gathering my things and driving somewhere "pretty" to sit outside and knit but it's too damned hot.

Hrm.

Anyway...enough whining about my yarn problems and craft-funk. Medically, all quiet on the north-state front. I'm having bits of lymphedema here and there, which is always a bitch, but it's pretty mild overall. The prolapse is still prolapsing. I'm still experiencing lots of random pain at random times, which is significantly problematic. Significantly. But I deal with it, as usual.

Headaches, including some migraine-level monsters, have been a big player in this week's fun. W H E E. We all know how much fun those are.

Sometimes I can eat, but not any more often than before. However, there's been a breakthrough: I've found that sucking on hard candies - cinnamon red hots are my favorite; little sour candies; suckers; jawbreakers (the Penny Candy store in Live Oak is a wonderous place!!) - can help alleviate the nausea, help with my dry mouth and trouble swallowing, and generally make me feel better sometimes when I can't eat. This is a wonderful revelation.

The bursitis in my hips is acting up, causing lots of pain. The left is still far worse than the right, and when I see Andy for my normal monthly visit next week, he's going to shoot me up with cortisone again on that side. We did that last summer, and it kept things pretty well under control for the year, so I'm hoping for a similar result. Hopefully the right side won't progress to a point where I need to do anything like that. Hopefully.

I think that's about it for me... Anna's fighting the yearly battle with the gnarliest bug bites you'll ever see on a kid. She's basically going to spend her weekend kind of zonked and zombied because I have to give her benedryl when she gets these giant things. One of them landed her in the Kaiser urgent care ward on a Sunday, way back when we first found out how violently allergic she is to bug bites, so now we treat all bites as if they could go supernova on us! Cortisone cream and benedryl and lots of "watching." This time, she's got some that I can't ID as mosquito, spider or anything else known, so I've got to go Google these strange shaped boogers.

Weekend update, over and out. Goodnight(day) and have a pleasant tomorrow.

Smoke gets in your eyes

And no, I don't mean the song...

For meteorological reasons that I will never entirely understand, no matter how well they're explained to me, I am lucky enough to live in the place that all the smoke goes to. We get it from fires up here in the Sierra foothills, the Santa Cruz fires, the Santa Barbara fires, you name it. Just from taking puppykins out to go potty, I'm having major throat & lung irritation and a big headache.

Lordy, I hate fire season!! I hate the smoke, and I hate worrying about friends and family. We finally went so far as to put up a California map in the game room - it serves a dual purpose: Lloyd marks every place he's ridden to on his death machine with small colored pins, and I mark everywhere we have a friend or relative living with bigger white pins. That way I can always run upstairs and check out the map to see how close a fire is to someone whenever I need to, instead of trying to figure it out from news or online maps.

So anyway... The big news from up here is that the kids are home. The first couple weeks of them being home are always a major adjustment period for all of us. I think of it as the Mommy Hangover period. They always come home completely different human beings (in a number of ways) from who they were when they left. Mommy always manages to make some sort of change, usually on a random impulse, that affects us a lot, because we're the ones who have to handle the follow-up for the rest of the year.

This year, for example, Trevor came home with contacts. The reason for getting him contacts? When he was at the beach swimming in the ocean, he couldn't wear his glasses, so when

he got out of the water he couldn't see her. Goodness knows he'll be in THAT situation constantly, right? So she says she'll pay for them, but it's now on us to replace them regularly, make sure he's using them right, cleaning them, etc. from here on out. Gee.....um, thanks.

It's also a rough couple of weeks because leaving Mommy is genuinely hard on the kids, but especially because they have to come back to reality. No more staying up till midnight (we got email from Anna timestamped after 11:30), no more 100% playtime at the beach, pool, museums, etc - instead, it's back to a normal bedtime, cleaning rooms, unpacking their suitcases, doing laundry, daily chores and getting ready to go back to school. Like I said: reality, and we all know reality bites. I just have to remind myself that they're always like this at first, and that the Mommy effect does wear off in a week or two. It's just hard while it lasts.

I KNOW I shouldn't be so annoyed and upset by this stuff though. I know that. But I am anyway... I raise them for 11 months of the year, and in 1 month, suddenly everything is disrupted and I freak out. She and I do talk about things, and our conversations are good, both for us and for the kids. It's just that we all know I do not handle change well at all, for one,

and there is a distinct jealousy issue there that she will always be loved so much more just for being Mommy, and her time with them is all about fun and games and playtime, while I get the job of actually raising them and don't get to be the one who has so much fun with them.

ANYWAY............

On the medical front, there is blessedly little to report. My new medication for my bladder seems to be helping, just in that there is less pain from that area and fewer feelings like I have a bladder infection. I'm still working on those evil disability forms to get them done, and Andy sent me a copy of what he wrote up for them, and it's wonderful. He kicks ass. Hopefully everything can be done and mailed off to the lawyer by the end of this coming week. I'd been using my early morning time to work on it, before Lloyd got up, but I learned rather quickly that I'd have to get up a LOT earlier for that to work out now that the kids are home! Anna popped out of bed before 7 yesterday. I'll figure it out somehow though.

What else... I'm trying to get back into cooking for the family far more often. That's one of my big goals of my recovery, and I figured that them coming home, and school starting was the perfect time for me to get into that. Of course, we also need to watch our budget dramatically, so the two things are going hand in hand. I'm trying to plan out most of the week's meals so that we can go to the store once and know we have everything we need on hand for that week. To start, I'm only committing myself to cooking 3 times. I figure if I commit to more, I'll just end up burning out really quick - I need to ease into it. So, that's a major thing in my recovery. It might not sound like it, but it really, really is.

So, to that end, I'm doing a lot of skimming my magazines for new recipes to try out, to see if we can expand our repertoire, looking in my cookbooks, etc. I'm trying very, very hard to get back to knitting, too. It's been so long since my fingers were able to stand it, it almost feels alien to me and I'm really borderline frantic to get it back. I have sewing I want to do too, and felting and spinning, and it frustrates the hell out of me when I can't manage to get any of it done - sometimes because I don't feel well enough, or hurt too much, but sometimes because I piddle away my free/awake time with minutiae of the day and never get to it.

I honestly think that's about it! I didn't do so good with trying to update more than once a week, but there just hasn't been that much to talk about! I will keep trying to be better, I promise Mom! ;-)

For now, I'm going to quit piddling and get to doing something productive. Sedentary, but productive!

Weekend Update

Oh, poop...I managed to let another week go by without updating all y'all on the fun stuff in my life. There hasn't been much going on, but still!

Well, first of all, I have learned that I should be funnier. Damn. If this blog had been a hell of a lot funnier, I might have got mentioned in the Newsweek article about young people handling cancer with humor, like Megan did. Her blog, "What's up your butt?" inspired this blog, and was mentioned in the article. Yay for Megan!

Anyway... the medical news update...

I went to see Dr. Davis, my gynecologist, on Monday to see about that gnarly little prolapse problem and my bladder issues.

Basically, my vaginal canal is prolapsing because of lack of support and weakened muscles and tissues. Luckily, at this point, the prolapse is NOT bad enough to need surgery. That may change at ANY time, of course, and if it does, I will need surgery. I made sure that the doctor understands that my BCCTP coverage ends about a year from now, so if there's any chance I'm going to need surgery at some point, I need to have it before that coverage disappears. No more coverage, no surgery. We just can't afford it, period.

Dr. Davis has also figured out that I have interstitial cystitis, which is a bladder problem, and which explains a LOT of my life. I'll let WebMD explain what it is:

Interstitial cystitis is a chronic inflammation of the bladder that causes chronic pain and discomfort. Symptoms often include a sense of urgency and increased frequency of urination. The bladder is a hollow balloon-like organ that collects urine from the kidneys and holds it until it can be expelled. The walls of the bladder consist mainly of muscle that relaxes as the bladder fills and contracts to empty it. The inside walls are covered with a lining of cells that protect the muscle from contact with urine.

Inflammation associated with IC causes the lining to scar and the bladder to stiffen, which affects the way

the bladder expands. In about 90% of IC cases there are pinpoint spots of bleeding visible in the lining. And in 5% to 10% of cases, there are ulcers or sores known as Hunner's patches.

Interstitial cystitis causes mild to severe pain in the bladder and surrounding pelvic area.

Well-that explains an awful lot, now doesn't it? Dr. Davis says that the condition also acts in such a way that it inflames the MAST cells in the lining of the bladder and cause a histamine reaction.

Basically, what all of this means is that I have a possible/probable explanation for some of the constant pain I'm in, the constant need to pee, the frequent feeling like I have a bladder infection when I don't (test sticks say no), and the difficulty and pain emptying my bladder.

The good news is that there are things that can be done about this. Yay! There are medications I can take, and there is a procedure called a cystoscopy that we will probably be doing. That involves threading a camera into the bladder to look at the walls and see how inflamed the lining is, and wash the inside of the bladder with a couple different solutions to soothe and medicate it. The doctor's office is working on the logistics for that.

The only bad news is that one of the meds, which I've been on for a few days now, seems to be hitting me HARD with gastro-intestinal side effects. In short, I am SICK. Nausea, vomiting, cramps, diarrhea, painful gas bubble, stomach pain, intestinal cramps, you name it, I've got it.

So, where does that leave us? Well, for a few days, still sick, hoping that the side effects go away! I'll let everyone know when the cystoscopy gets scheduled. It'll be a Monday, it'll be up at Feather River Hospital and it will be done under heavy conscious sedation to general anesthesia, depending. Hell, put me under, I don't want to be awake if I don't have to be!!

The prolapse will be considered under observation for now, but if it gets any worse, then Dr. Davis will have to go in and surgically yank things back into place.

Otherwise, we've just been goofing off around the house, trying to get some small projects done, and preparing for the impending arrival of the children. They'll be back all too soon, and there are school supplies to prepare, clothes to get, you name it. I'm trying to get at least a little bit of something useful done each day before I collapse into "sick and icky" mode and do nothing.

I think that's about it.........but I'll try not to wait a week next time! The longer I wait, the more I forget.....

Negatory

Let the wild rumpus start!

Well, there probably won't be any rumpus, per se, I am very happy. By now, most everyone in my world knows (via Facebook, text message or late-night phone call) that my Pap test came back completely clean, negative, clear and wonderful.

There is, at this point, no evidence of nasty cancerous cells hanging out down there

where there used to be a cervix. How freakin' cool is that?

I am definitely happy, and very definitely relieved of a small part of my "nagging worry" collection that I carry around with me at all times, but while some intellectual part of my brain says, "Dude, you're supposed to throw a party or something," I can't really wrap myself around the idea and get too excited. I'm just kind of flat.... Lloyd and I were talking about it last night, and figure that maybe that's because I've just got so many other things going on, medically-speaking, that one thing will just keep cancelling another out or something.

Yesterday, before I got the Pap news, I went to see the pulmonologist up in Paradise. Shockingly, he was actually quite NICE and likeable this time, and told me that all scans and x-rays and everything else show that those little "nodules" are still only 5mm and inconclusive.

They could be metastatic cancer, or they could be nothing at all, and unless they grow and move and start showing any sort of behavior at all, we can't know. They're too small to biopsy, and even with a bronchoscopy (which sounds pretty horrible), he says he'd never find them in there because they're so small. He says that he, himself, if he had these things, would not be at all worried about them. So...I'm really NOT. There is still that tiny, nagging worry part of my brain that will always be there, but otherwise, I'm ok.

Now, Monday, I get to go back and see Dr. Davis, the OB/GYN bearer of the good Pap news, for a much less fun reason. It would seem that my vaginal canal (or "vault," as they call it) is prolapsing--trying to turn itself inside out or escape. Basically, all the organs I used to have in my lower abdomen were sort of connected to each other by connective tissue, and helped support each other. I lost some intestine from that area in 1999, then the uterus, tubes and ovaries in March of 2008, and part of the canal, cervix, lymph nodes, and butt-loads of other scar tissue, cysts, and lord knows what else with the cancer surgery. My bladder, the main thing left in there, is probably the culprit, pushing down on the vaginal canal now that nothing else is holding anything else in anywhere, and thus the prolapse.

Lest anyone worry, this is exceptionally common. There are mechanical means of correction for minor ones, and surgical means if it goes too far. In my case, it hasn't gone TOO-too far yet, but... my BCCTP coverage only lasts for another year from Sept 1, so if it looks like it's going to need surgery eventually, I'm going to have to have it before the coverage runs out. Urgh.

SO, we shall see.

I am happy, honest I am, I'm just really tired, I guess. It's very early in the morning, and yet time to get my ass moving to go visit my favorite hairdresser and have this mop on my head FIXED so that I can live with it.

More news when I have some news.

Let the goofing off continue!

Yup, I'm still here. Still alive, and still goofing off. I'm still fighting major aches and pains and medical issues, but otherwise just doing a lot of goofing off and watching recorded tv with my darling husband.

Yesterday, we actually left the house (since it was only 103, instead of 109) and went to the movies. YAY for Harry Potter!! I was exceptionally upset by one deviation from the book, but otherwise, it was a good, fun movie. After five previous movies, my expectations are kind of set for how much they'll manage to work in from the book and how much important stuff will have to be left out, so I was in the right place. Very dark and scary though. Even Lloyd literally jumped out of his seat once! I wouldn't take little kids to see it, but that's just me.

Today is a resting day, since I have doctor's appointments both tomorrow and the next day. Yes, even a simple trip to the movies takes it out of me so severely that I need a resting day.

Tomorrow is Andy for my normal monthly check in and prescription writing; Thursday is the pulmonologist & a chest xray. After that, I should have some juicy medical gossip to tell, like whether or not I have to have a bronchoscopy (I have GOT to look that up...) to sample whatever these things in my lungs are.

And, I do have to talk to my assorted doctors, because I'm really starting to feel like the amount of pain I'm having, and the kind and the location of pain, is more than and/or different from what I should be having this far out from surgery, chemo, etc. I'm really uncomfortable! So, we'll see...

That's about it....so I'll leave you with an interesting view on medical treatment. Um, yeah.....interesting.....courtesy of my favorite newspaper column.

OLD FASHIONED MEDICAL TREATMENT

Here is my suggestion for medical treatment for people who don't have insurance. I'm 80 years old, and most people didn't have insurance when we were raising our children. We went to the county clinic and count hospital as stated, so we need to go back to those arrangements. It was good enough for us. I might add, there is an ethnic group that is putting kids out one after another. I live in one of those apartments. They have a couple of older kids. They came to this country with and then they are having more little ones. That I don't have an answer for. So who's paying for them?

July 21, 2009

Doctor update

Well, we have some minor medical news today.

I went to see Dr. Davis, the gynecologist up in Chico, for an annual exam and Pap smear, even though I don't actually have a cervix anymore. Of course, we're hoping that all the results come back negative. I have to have another one of these in six months, rather than only once a year. That part was a surprise to me!

Aside from the usual exam stuff, Dr. Davis suggested a medication I should talk about with Andy, to take the place of one of the ones I'm already on; set me up with a refill on my estrogen pills; added on an estrogen cream; prescribed some Silvadene cream for some skin problems I'm having, and generally got an idea of where I was at this point in my recovery.

From the Pap & internal exam and the pelvic he did today, nothing looked or felt out of the ordinary or strange, which is wonderful. No news is definitely good news in this context!

Good visit, great doctor. It's nice that all of my doctors take a very holistic approach to my care, and check me out from all directions - physical, mental, emotional, everything. They're all communicating with each other, so everyone basically has the same info, and I really feel like I'm been watched so closely that if ANYthing goes wrong, one of them will catch it immediately.

So, so far so good. After the doctor's visit, I got to go to Red Lobster and eat crab and be decadent. Then we came home and got assaulted by our dogs. Stella is SO big and SO strong that she can literally knock me down when the puppy enthusiam is at full blast. We gotta work on that.

And now, I'm ready for bed! I can't even tell you how many typos I've made and had to correct while trying to write this silly little entry ......aet;kljhuiswreklh435jsb!!!

G'nite!

Yep, still sick; plus more Small Town Stupidty

Still sick, in fact, even more sick than I was before. When I talked to Lorrie this morning (Andy's wife & nurse practitioner) I actually asked her how we would go about finding out if it was swine flu - told her it was my hypochondriac moment for the day!

She took me seriously though, told me that the powers that be will only test you if they can document that you were exposed to someone with a confirmed case. Now, that seems kind of silly to me in general, but whatever. She said to treat it as if it was - which means, treat it like any big, bad, nasty flu that is making you beyond miserable. Rest, fluids, etc. We all know the drill!

So I am resting, and taking care of myself. That's about all there is to report.

Meanwhile, Small Town Stupidity!

"Newspaper is rolled too tight

It's hard enough to read the newspaper as it is, being as it's so long and narrow. So why is it now being rolled tightly together with a rubber band? That makes it even more impossible and unmanageable." July 20, 2009

"Name street after Jackson

The late, great Michael Jackson deserves far more than just a national holiday in his honor. How does Michael Jackson Street grab you?" July 20, 2009

No news is good news, right?

Well, basically, yeah. We've been doing a whole lotta nothing, since I've been borderline sick (flu-y) on top of my lymphedema CRAP and random cancer-related side effects that alternately hurt like hell and piss me off and also because it's been hotter than hell - literally!!

106 degrees is not weather in which to do anything except stay in the air conditioned house and absolutely revel in the fact that you have air conditioning. Those of you who don't are certainly invited to come visit and revel with us. We have lots of empty beds to offer up right now.

So, since I have nothing to report, I'm going to start something I've thought about doing for a while now. Let me explain...

We live in a small town, in an area with lots of small towns, where our largest city is Chico, a burg of less than 90,000 people (if the internet is to be believed). We've got a good sized CSU (California State University) and I don't know if population figures include the student body or not.

So, anyway, small towns, small town newspapers...

One of my favorite features of our local paper, the Chico Enterprise-Record, is their call-in op-ed feature "Tell It To The E-R." This is apparently a voicemail box, set up to record anonymous comments from readers, which are then printed verbatim in the paper.

The key word in there folks was "verbatim."

When I've got nothing else to write, I'm going to treat you all to some of the um, wisdom, shared by my fellow NorthState residents. Since it's the first time, I'll put up a few. Enjoy...

"Correction for misquote

I called in the other day and left a message and it was misquoted. It was regarding medical marijuana. The active ingredient in marijuana that kills cancer is THC -- that's Tom, Harry, Charlie. Not PAC. Anyway people, Google search that. Even your reporters, Google search that -- and you'd see the benefits." July 15, 2009

(DAMN, if I'd known pot killed cancer, I'd have spent an awful lot of time stoned over the last year!)

"Comcast should be cheaper

Why after first eliminating Hallmark and now channel 17 [local PBS station] has Comcast not lowered the monthly charge?" July 15, 2009

"We have laws for right and wrong

That did it, I'm ready to stab freedom of speech right in the back. Not like the righeous Obama leftists, however. I want to describe 'race' as a competition as in sports or politics, to win. Otherwise, race, racism and racists shall be, from here on out banned, eliminated and never used again.

The rules for this started 2,000 years ago or so and still exist today. It's called 'right' or 'wrong.' Otherwise, you promote and proliferate the words and the actions felt the least in separation.

Laws already exist for right and wrong.

Thank you. Enjoy the weather here this is great. Take care." July 18, 2009

Ahhhhhh..........I love my small-town world. :-)

Day 2.5, and the slide has begun

Yes, this is day 2-1/2 of our month sans children, and our slow slide into debauchery has begun.

Well, maybe not too slow. We dropped the kids off at grandma's house on Monday afternoon, then went to run an errand in Roseville before we went home. By the time we were done, dinner was called for, so we decided to try something new, and headed for the Thunder Valley Casino in Lincoln. Casino buffets are wonderful things, you know. The fact that we got free slot play money by joining the players club was just a bonus. See, you have to join the club before you go to the buffet - you save $5 per person off your dinner if you do, making it only $9.95, which is the deal of the century. Thunder Valley, unlike all the other indian casinos we've been to, is so giant and gorgeous, it looks like you're in Tahoe, and the buffet meets that standard too. I mean, WOW buffet. So, anyway, we were bad, and we didn't get home until almost 11 pm.

Oops.

There was much puppy apologizing to be done.

Last night, we had a proper grownup dinner, all by ourselves and behaved. Tonight, we've started moving into our normal summer routine of sitting around the living room and only bothering to eat when we feel like it, which might mean never, or might mean we eat fast food at the coffee table. Who knows. I should probably consume something vaguely dinner-like.

So, anyway, the kids are safely in New Jersey for their month, and we get to goof off like newlyweds again, aside from all the Social Security paperwork we need to work on. The goal is to get that done as soon as humanly possible, so that we can get to the goofing!

All is well, with us, puppies, kitties, birdies, fishies, and way-far-away kiddies. Thanks for checking. :-)

Down by the river...

Ah, yesterday afternoon was relaxing, sitting on my ass by the side of a river (we changed from lake to river) having nothing at all to do but sit on my ass by the river and watch two little girls make things out of sand and get astoundingly messy and dirty. It was entertaining. I think it would have been just about perfect if my stupid-ass lymphedema hadn't been making my uncomfortable, but such is life.

I'll have to bug Aim to send me some of the pics she took of the messy little girls, especially the one in a princess bathing suit with a very saggy butt. ;-)

No, that wasn't Anna, just in case you were wondering.

So, I learned that the park in Oroville on the Feather River was a very nice place to play in the river, being as where we were was right on a big sandbar, so that the kids could wade out into the river in a really shallow area to play. I also learned that doggies were welcome at that park, and in the river, which is the exciting news of the day!! We'll have to get Stella a 50-ft line so we can take her swimming. Pea and Sparky will come back to us, but she'd be somewhere 3 miles downriver before I blinked.

Anyway... In case I hadn't fully explained, what with my anti-selfishness rant yesterday, the young'uns are heading east for a month starting Tuesday. I just thought I should mention that, since we might take every chance while they're gone to run away and goof off, leading to a dramatic downturn in the number of blog postings. Then again, since my visit with Dr. Mazj, I've got several medical things scheduled during the time they're gone (back to being a professional patient!), so I'll undoubtedly have stuff that needs posting.

But, one way or another, we're determined to enjoy ourselves, even if all we do is clean the

house top to bottom (so that it will STAY that way for a month) and then lapse into a stupor of watching movies together on the couch and eating a lot of Chinese take-out.

Either way - running away or lapsing into a stupor - it'll be a nice little vacation. I'll probably spend a good part of the time worrying that the kids are bored silly, like they were on their last trip back there, but the rest will be nice.

So, be patient with me if I get lazy about updating. If I get something up here once a week, I'm not dead; and the odds are good that I will have very little to report. That would be good, right?

Today and tomorrow are the hard-core packing days, in which we try to cram everything they might need for a month into three suitcases which each weigh less than 50 lbs. Tuesday, we load 'em up and truck down to Sacramento, to Grandma's house, where Mommy will be waiting. At some point after that, Mommy loads 'em up and trucks them down to San Francisco to the airport (no direct flights from Sac to NJ) and takes them back east. Middle of August, the process gets reversed.

So that's the scoop here. I'm exhausted, and I feel exceptionally sick to my stomach, but we're supposed to all go out to a movie this afternoon, followed by dinner in Chico, to celebrate Trevor's birthday, so I suppose I have to get to feeling a lot better very soon. Sadly, if I were to feel too crappy to go, I would be made to feel way, way worse in the form of guilt-trips, so I have to suck it up.

Wednesday I can collapse into a puddle, and Thursday I even get a massage, so the vacation will begin then!

Off to go sneak in some reading before too many other people wake up and I have to become productive. Productive, boo.

Oh, how time flies when you're sleeping too much...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAWN!!

Here's wishing the happiest of days to someone who deserves it most.

You held my virtual

hand through the hardest weeks of my entire life and I'll never forget that.

You deserve the best!

XOXOXO

Sleeping too much, but not sleeping enough...that's pretty much the theme this week! I am SO tired! I don't have any good reason to be so tired, but there you have it. I doze off at the computer, on the couch, hell, even in the bathroom. About the only place I don't doze off is the shower, thank god.

Getting up with Stella in the wee hours might have something to do with it, but I'm not sure. One MIGHT think I'd be used to that by now. But, no, I just keep wanting nothing but sleep when I try to sit and read a book or anything else that doesn't require being on my feet moving. Might not be so bad, but I have a lot of things I want to do, like read books and knit, and things I need to do, and they aren't getting done.

Anyway...Grand Revelation of the Week time: I have decided that the thing I hate most in the entire world right now is selfish people. It used to be that the thing I hated most was bigoted, intolerant people - and I sure as hell still do - but I've decided that being bigoted and intolerant is a type of selfishness, so it all works out.

But anyway, I'm pissed as hell at selfish people. You all know the type - the ones who are pretty well convinced that they are the only beings to inhabit this planet; or at least the only ones worth noticing; so therefore they can do as they please, when they please, and expect us all to just bow to their wishes at all times. If they don't like what you have done, said, written, THOUGHT, well then, you are WRONG, wrong, wrong my friend. Sometimes you will be treated to a very long and detailed explanation of just how you are wrong, with one type of Selfish Little Shit (hereafter known as SLS) or, sometimes you will simply be shown, via words, nasty looks, rolled eyes, or other body language how utterly stupid and wrong you are, and how pathetic it is that you tried.

So, can you tell I've been getting pissed off at some SLSs lately? To be clear, I did mean that in the plural, and no, I am not going to discuss who these SLSs are. We'll let them remain anonymous for now.

I'm just tired, tired, tired of that kind of behavior! I know I'm really far from perfect, and I can be a crabby, short-tempered bitch at times. But, at the same time, I really go out of my way to be a nice person, to be thoughtful and considerate, and to treat people well and fairly. I give gifts, whether for occasions or they are just small tokens for no reason, to be nice. I say please and thank you ALL the time, even when I'm irritated or angry. I feel that is necessary, whether I'm talking to a relative, a clerk at a store, or even "asking" (aka telling) a child to do a chore or task.

I am trying very hard to teach my kids the same principles, because *I* selfishly think they are important. In one case, I think it's working.

Now, don't get me wrong - there are times when selfishness is essential. Sometimes, we need to be very selfish in order to get the time we need to take care of ourselves when we are usually taking care of others, or to learn to say "no" to that one more favor that would put you over the tipping point to insanity. Lots of good reasons, yes, but even in those, polite, proper behavior is mandatory.

The kind of selfishness that is making me so crazy is the kind where the person in question speaks, acts, behaves as if they are either the most important person in the universe; or they are actually the ONLY person in the universe, and therefore their behavior doesn't have any effect on anyone else.

That is what gets me, right there. Your behavior does affect others, like when everyone else is ready, and must wait on you, when dinner is on the table getting cold because you can't be bothered to come down until 10 minutes after you were told, when you criticize someone's way of doing things because your way is the only proper way, when you make significant decisions without consulting anyone else (in cases where others have a definite stake in the outcome), when you make rude comments to or about someone because they have thoughts and opinions you disagree with, and especially, when all of the rules that apply to others DO NOT apply to you - in YOUR head only - because you are YOU! Wow! It must be wonderful to live in THAT fantasy world, huh?

We all know people like this, right? I just finally realized yesterday that they were the cause of a lot of the stress in my life. That is unacceptable!

See, I'm not allowed to have stress. I have enough stress from medical issues that there isn't room in my life for any other kind. Since I don't get a vote on whether or not I have the medical stress, I have to rule out all other kinds.

If only it were really that easy, right? I can say I'm banning all SLSs from my life and mean it, but I can't quite practically 100% do that. I'm going to damned well try, but sometimes there are slight issues there. You all know what I mean. Well, maybe not all, because some of you reading may have recognized yourself in those descriptions up there... I'm not going to say I'm sorry, because I'm not - I fully understand that my rants may lose me some readers here and there!!

Anyway.....rant completed. I'm trying to get back to a nice zen-like place now. It's time for some yoga (puppy-assisted yoga, the best kind), then time to start getting things together to head out to the lake with Aimee & Em. It's shaping up to be a gorgeous day out there, so it should be beautiful lakeside! I need to make friends with someone who owns a boat so I can get out ON the lake someday!

Hope everyone's having a wonderful Saturday!

Happy 7th of July

I hope everyone had a good 4th! I was too busy enjoying myself to blog, so you'll have to forgive me.

And, in the spirit of patriotism, you MUST watch this. You must.

Now....was that not the funniest thing you've seen all day? C'mon, you know it was.

Saw my doctors on Thursday, with all pretty

good results. Dr. Mazj wants me back in with the pulmonologist I saw that one time before, because those little whatever-they-ares in my lungs are still there, as (in his word not mine,) "nodules" and need checking. They haven't grown at all since last visit, and are still too small to biopsy, these being good things, but they are still there and unidentified, so he wants them identified, stat. Ok.

He also sent me for labs, of course, and my hemoglobin is back into the "why aren't you dead yet?" range. Andy was sooooo happy it had gone up to almost normal, and now I slipped back down again. Dr. M also noted that I am quite undernourished.

Grr. I've got to start finding the energy to make myself good healthy food again AND make myself eat it. Daddy brought me some great zucchini when he came up for the 4th, and I've eaten one of those, so that counts as a start, right? It wasn't even deep-fried! I am going to go to Safeway today and raid the produce section, I swear, and then I swear I'll eat some of it, even if it's 3 bites a day. That would be 3 bites more than now, right?

Daddy and I were talking food, as we often do, and in discussing the wonders of Trader Joes, I had the grand realization that if I went to TJs on a regular basis, I would undoubtedly eat better, and eat more. TJs has all these wonderful, delectable things, which are organic and whole grain and Omega-3'd and antioxidanted and all sorts of wonderful things like that, and as a killer bonus, are made in little me-sized portions, are cheap, and taste great. Amazing, huh?

(And I'm finding myself wishing more and more that Daddy lived in Gridley, so he could come over and we could talk and have dinner and go do stuff to goof off. Sigh.)

So, I'm thinking I need to get back to a project I started long ago (among many) and make a list of food things that I love but always forget about. Like hummus, for example, or chicken salad, or Waldorf salad, or couscous, fresh fruit or heirloom tomatoes with bleu cheese dressing! Then I need to make an attempt to eat these things once in a while. If I can just make my life-schedule work itself out so that I actually start going to yoga class, yoga is almost right across the street from the shopping center where TJs is - a part of Chico I very rarely go to otherwise. Now, if that ain't a sign - yoga and TJs being near each other - then I don't know what is. Ok.

Moving on... Let's see, hemoglobin bad, things in lungs unidentified, protein and nutrient levels bad, lymphedema bad (but he's going to call the therapist for me and see if he can find out what's up with the torture garment thingy), and I think that's about it from Dr. Mazj.

Next, I went downstairs and saw Dr. Whalen in radiation. Of the many docs I've seen down there, I really like Dr. Whalen. He's nice, he's straight to the point, and he's the doc who took it upon himself to do a bunch of research and consult with Drs. Pisani & Mazj to determine that I did NOT need the internal radiation and that it would probably do more harm than good. That really makes him a good guy in my book! He did some very uncomfortable exams - I'll spare all y'all the details - and discovered that I had a yeast infection without even knowing it. Amazing, because normally I KNOW, but I guess this one is different and stealthy. Could explain some random symptoms and the absolute exhaustion I'm having lately, if there's been an infection of any kind festering in my body and draining resources...and man oh man have I been exhausted and sleeping most of the day for the last couple. So anyway, Diflucan is our friend. I took it yesterday, and hopefully the little yeastiebeasties will already be on the run.

I think that's about it medically... Well, for me at least. Someone else in this house is having major surgery tomorrow - my beautiful baby puppy! Yup, it's time. She's going in to get spayed, which is a good thing over all, but made even better by the fact that Dr. Brenda is going to pull all her remaining puppy teeth while she's under. This is significant! The poor baby has gums that are swollen to all hell and must hurt like nothin' doin', because if you look carefully, you can see the baby tooth and the erupting adult tooth crammed into the same socket. Ow! That's gotta be miserable. She's definitely acting miserable in the form of crabby and getting in trouble. The dog who never gets into things has been stealing random possessions, including my little stuffed elephant Spot, which could have been a tragedy!!! Normally, she'll make off with something random maybe once every week or two. Yesterday, it was maybe 8 things spread throughout the day.

I keep trying to give her teethers - rubber toys kept in the fridge, scraps of washcloth that were wet and then frozen hard, normal toys, nylabones - to keep her busy. They all end up covered in blood, which is very disconcerting, but when I check, it's just normal loose tooth bleeding. This morning, she's been crying non-stop, which of course kills me. I finally gave in and gave her a rawhide, even though I know she'll bleed like crazy, but it keeps her busy, happy and not crying, and those are things to strive for!! I just have to remember to have the vet save me her baby teeth, because I'm weird like that.

When we take her in, Mr. Sparkydog is going along for the ride, so that he can get microchipped

while we're there. They do that on a walk-in basis, which makes it really convenient. Pea got hers when she was in for xrays, and Stella was done with her first puppy shots. Now all the babies will be chipped, and their fretful Mommy will be happy.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we're trying to get the kids ready to head back east with Mommy for a month. They used to go back for the entire summer; last year they didn't go at all; this year we're trying a month.

I'm going to lovelovelovelovelove the quiet and time alone with my darling husband, but I'm also going to go nuts with them gone. I worry nonstop that they'll be unhappy and bored like they were the last summer they went.

Some of you might recall that the last time they went, the summer we moved, she almost brought them home a month early because she and her SO were fighting so much; topi

c of the fights: her never being home or spending any time with the kids, who were then stuck in the condo with him as de facto babysitter for the whole summer. So the atmosphere at that time wasn't great, and the kids were bored out of their skulls on top of that, so therefore I was miserable. I'm praying it goes better this year, for the munchkins' sake. I can't enjoy my time alone with my DH if my little girl is calling me crying.

But anyway, getting them ready to go takes a lot of work! Sorting all their clothes to see what fits, buying more clothes, figuring out what "stuff" they can take to keep themselves busy, etc. All the new airline baggage rules should make this REALLY interesting, what with the charges and weight limits and fees, oh my.

I really wish to god Trevor could take his guitar back with him, but I just can't see it. It would be an immense pain in the ass with infinite potential for damage, but I still wish. He is SO good now, and loves it so much, I hate to see him lose all that playing time. Ah well.

I think that is about all that is new and noteworthy. The only other thing I have to mention is

that I've discovered some new blogs worth checking out, if you're of a mind to do such things.

I'm hooked on the sheer glee that is Cake Wrecks - so now Jen has gotten herself nominated in

the "Funniest" category of some major blog awards. Checking out the competition, I've found some other wonderful silliness to read.

The awards site is here http://www.socialluxelounge.com/blogluxe/ if you want to check out some of the finalists. (Sadly, voting is closed) So far, I've found Twitarded, Meanest Mom and Boobs, Injuries & Dr. Pepper to be bleh so far. However, Bye Bye, Pie! is thus far hilarious, and Barefoot Foodie is

showing strong potential.

Well, and of course, if you're not peeking at Cake Wrecks (www.cakewrecks.blogspot.com) on a daily basis for some serious giggles, you are a total loser anyway. ;-) I mean, how can you NOT read a blog in which yesterday's feature was wedding cakes shaped like tree stumps? C'mon people! Well, I get a lot of serious giggling done, anyway.

(Scary stump cake picture is copyright Cake Wrecks & Jen Yates, I just wanted to show y'all!)

The scary sasquatch and well, I don't know what the hell it is cake pictures are mine, taken at my local MegaLoMart.

The agenda for today is to take the little one to get her hair done - a nice trim to even up her split ends and let those glorious curls hang evenly - and to Safeway, to raid the produce department. I've also got to start working on some pulled pork for sandwiches to use up our stash of both pork and hamburger buns before they all leave. I've got to do a freezer inventory for just that reason. Giant sized packages of anything aren't useful when it's just the two of us, and I hardly eat!

But I think that's about it for now. I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but I can always add it later. Happy Tuesday everyone!! (I'm eating a peach...be impressed!)

Happy July!I

Ah, a new month.....but today feels like a blast from the past.

I'm to be up at the cancer center before 1, go have blood drawn for labs, and then see Dr. Mazj at 1:30 and the radiation oncologist (I never know which one!) after that. Sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it?

Yep, I'm dreading it.

Not because it will really be horrible or something, but just because I have to go do it.

At least I get to go buy fireworks beforehand. That is the fun part of the day. I'm lucky enough to live in one of two cities in Butte County that still allow them, so we're taking advantage. It's Trevor's birthday on the 5th, so that's another excuse to light up the night on the 4th. At least that's what we tell ourselves. Daddy's coming up to play pyro with us this year, so that makes it even more fun!

Otherwise, there's not a hell of a lot going on besides birthday preparation. We don't have gifts to buy - we're taking him to Guitar Center with a virtual gift certificate to spend early next week - but I have to make a mud pie for his cake. Not hard, just time consuming, it seems. I've never made one, but it seems pretty simple.

In other news, I went and saw Andy this week, and my labs came back mostly encouraging. I'm still "not nourished," in his words, but my hemoglobin numbers are up to a place that approaches the bottom of the normal scale, and my A1C diabetes score is 5.5, which is friggin' great - you're supposed to aim for a score under 7. The only major negative was my vitamin B12, so it's finally [sigh] time for me to do the injections, which means I have a kit to pick up at Longs full of syringes and goodies. Wheee. Not.

Meanwhile, I'm still crankin' away on the paperwork pile. It's reaching the home stretch, so that's encouraging. I know it's the first of many, but I think this set is the longest and ugliest to get through.

I think that's about it, but I wanted to give y'all a quick update. I'll have another one of some sort after I see the two oncologists today, so I'll probably post when I get home, whenever that may be. I never know when I go see them!

Stay tuned...