Sunday, March 30, 2008
3 Words Sunday
Not a lot going on around here today. Right now we're both watching Golf and drinking a cup of tea. That sentence made us sound very old. Have a great Sunday!
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Spring Cleaning
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Thankful Thursday
1. Friends. I had lunch with a friend today and had such a nice time. She lives right down the street from my work so I foresee many more lunches to come. Thanks J!
2. I am thankful for my job. I am enjoying what I do and me and my co-worker laugh every single day about something or other. Thanks D!
3. I'm thankful for our dog. She might be vicious to people she doesn't know, but she is so incredibly happy to see me when I come home from work. I have been missing our Tess a lot in the last few weeks, and she makes that pain much more bearable.
4. I am thankful for the gym. I finally got back to the gym today after hurting my back three weeks ago and it feels good to be active again.
5. I am thankful to have a few days off in the first week of April and that I am going back up to my sees-ters for a longer visit.
6. I am thankful for fat free frozen yogurt. I am trying to eat healthier and it tastes just like ice cream. I am about to have some right now. Yum.
7. I am thankful for the free books my husband gets from his part time job. He just brought me home four more and now I have a stack on my bedside table that I can't wait to start.
What are you thankful for?
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
17 months
You can probably guess what we did today. We owe almost a thousand dollars in State taxes. Ugh. But we're getting back some from Federal, plus the tax rebate, which we totally qualify for, so it's all relative I guess. I'm just glad it's done. As soon as our accountant gets them back to us, we'll drop them in the mail and then not worry about it for another year. Except for changing the withholdings for the state. I'm tired of owing them money every year. There goes another eighty five bucks or so a month from my paycheck. Sigh. We will get ahead someday, right?
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Cravings
Until tonight that is. Joe is teaching a night class, so he isn't home and I was trying to decide what to have for dinner. I hate to cook for just myself(who am I kidding. I pretty much just hate to cook, period). All of a sudden I had this craving for pancakes. Yes, pancakes. For dinner. Don’t tell me you’ve never had pancakes for dinner. If you haven’t, you should try it.
Anyway, I digress. So I’m sitting home by myself and I get a hankering for some pancakes.(I spent almost ten of my formative years at a stables with my horse, so yes, I can use the word hankering).
I go into the kitchen and look in the cupboards and there is no pancake mix to be found. Yes, I use prepackaged pancake mix that you just add water to. Refer back to the “I hate to cook” paragraph.
I was bummed for a minute until I thought to myself “Hey-I’ll bet I have the stuff in my cupboards to make homemade pancakes.” So I hit the internet and came up with a couple of pancake recipes and sure enough, I DID have all of the ingredients.
So I whipped myself up some homemade pancakes. And as I was mixing the ingredients together I thought to myself “Do you know what would make these pancakes better?”
Chocolate chips! So I look in the cupboard and sure enough, there is a bag of chocolate chips I bought intending to make some fudge that never got made.
So I dumped those in the bowl. As I was stirring in the chocolate chips I thought “Hmmmmm.....do you know what would make these even better?
Bananas! Oh yeah. Bananas. Yum. Into the batter they went.
So I cooked me up some banana-chocolate chip pancakes the size of my head! Well, almost the size of my head. And I just finished eating four of those babies and now I’m feeling a little sick to my stomach. But boy, were they good!
Here are some pictures:
I went to the cupboard to pull out a plate to put the pancakes on, and this was the first one I grabbed, because it was on top. It is left over from a visit from my niece and nephew a couple of years ago. There is also a Backyardigans one for Gracie.
And then I finished writing this post and realized I just spent the evening making pancakes for myself for dinner and then taking pictures of it and eating them off of a Bob the Builder plate. I hope China speeds up soon because I’m not sure what will happen to me if I go much longer without having any children. :)
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Easter Sunday Relaxation
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Thankful Thursday
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Random pictures
The airport on the way to Lisa's
Bay Bridge
View from the airplane
Cameron's first baseball game
View from the airplane on the way home
My Dad and brother's new puppy. Isn't he the cutest?
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
This picture was supposed to be posted yesterday but I didn't get it from Lisa until today so I'm posting it now. Fun times.
You know how sometimes you come home from a vacation or a weekend get away and everything you left at home is still there when you come home and it brings you down a little? That's how I'm feeling today. A little bit down. I've been trying to curb the personal details of my life here a little bit the last few months. Things have definitely improved slowly in the last few weeks, but we're still not where I want us to be. It's just not the same. I want things back the way they were. I want to sleep in the same room as my husband.
I want him to have his own car. I want him to have a job. A job that supports us. I want him to have a cell phone again so I can get a hold of him, for goodness sake's. Are those things too much to ask for? I want things back the way they were before my life fell apart almost twelve weeks ago. Gosh, has it been that long? It seems like only yesterday.
To top it all off we're in the middle of the dreaded adoption paperwork renewal. We call it the "Do-over". You know, the one that we will likely have to re-do again, and maybe even one more time after that? Why can't we just let it expire and renew in two years when we are close(er) to a referral? Is that allowed? Can anyone enlighten me on this one? Because it sucks. Everything has changed since the first time we did it. New address, new jobs, new doctors.
All of this makes me very tired. I just want to crawl into bed until everything is "normal" again.
But who knows how long that will be.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Girl's Weekend
I have to go home tomorrow already. Bummer. But I'll be back again in a few weeks, so I can't be too sad. Here's something funny that happened tonight when we got home from dinner.
I went downstairs to change my clothes and Gracie followed me. I took my pants off and was standing there in just my shirt and underwear. Gracie turns to me and says:
Um, Aunt Michelle I don't like it when you have no pants on.
I replied: Oh. I'm sorry. You might want to turn around then, because I am about to change my shirt.
Why should I turn around?
Because you don't like it when I have no pants on, so you probably won't like it when I have no shirt on either.
Oh, no. It's okay when you have no shirt on.
I like to look at these.
And then my four year old niece totally felt me up.
I am not kidding. She placed her hands on my breasts to emphasize "these"
Then she said "What are they called again?"
So we not only had to have a conversation about appropriate(and inappropriate) ways to touch other people, but then I got to have a conversation on the correct anatomical term for breasts.
Never a dull moment around here, I'm telling you.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Public Service Announcement
Did you also know that the actor/comedian George Lopez unknowingly suffered from kidney disease and recently received a kidney transplant from his wife?
Kidney disease is scary because the symptoms can be hard to diagnose. Some people have no symptoms at all until their kidneys have already been damaged. That was the case with me. I knew that something was not right and I "just didn't feel good", but I kept going to the doctor and they couldn't find anything wrong. Finally my General Practitioner noticed a high amount of both blood and protein in my urine and after months of tests and a kidney biospy I was diagnosed. The disease had been in my body for five or six years, but no one caught it and irreparable damage to both my kidneys had already occurred by that time.
Kidney disease can be caused by high blood pressure, or diabetes. Even using too many over the counter pain killers over a long period of time can cause kidney disease. In my case, it is an autoimmune disease. That means my body is attacking itself. We don't know why. Just lucky I guess. :) That means I didn't do anything or have any other disease that caused it. I probably had the disease for ten or more years and the symptoms only started showing up in the last 5.
In fact, if it hadn't been for the medical paperwork that was required for the adoption, I might still not have a diagnosis and I very well could have gone into kidney failure. So you could say that this adoption saved my life!
For more information on kidney disease, go to the National Kidney Foundation website.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Bored
3 Words and I've Been Tagged
Here's my three word submission for the week. I wish we could go back. I had much more fun last weekend than I am having this one.
Also, I've been tagged by Lisa at Journey to Diana
Here's the deal:
1. Pick the nearest book that has 123 pages.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next 3 sentences
5. Tag 5 people
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Today when I was taking Joe to work(we're still sharing a car(don't ask-It may very well put me over the edge completely), we passed by our neighbor's apartment(the one right next to ours).
Our neighbor was standing outside on her porch. There was a blue balloon floating next to her that said "It's a Boy!".
She invited us in to see her new grandbaby. She has a new two day old baby grandson, by her daughter.
Her daughter is fifteen. I never saw her pregnant. Apparently she went to live with some relatives for the last six months of the pregnancy.
Our neighbor is a single woman in her forties, with a fifteen year old daughter and an eighteen year old son, two dogs and a cat. They live in the same floor plan we do. 1,000 square feet, two bedrooms, two bath, patio.
There was a porta crib shoved into a corner of the dining room, and the couch bed was folded out into a bed.
Looking around their cramped apartment I couldn't help wonder where they were going to put the baby when he got older. Not to mention all the stuff that a baby comes with.
As we walked out of their apartment towards the car I was overcome with a huge wave of sadness. Here we are. Late thirties. Married for fifteen years. With a room not ten feet from their kitchen window full of baby clothes and baby toys and baby stuff and an empty crib, just waiting for a baby.
A baby that we very well could wait another three years for.
I have been trying very hard to be O.K. with the wait. Especially given some of the things we have been dealing with in our marriage lately.
But I'm having a hard time getting my head around this one. I'm not judging these people, and I'm not debating the "fairness" (or unfairness) of it. Because life's not fair. I know that all too well.
I guess the question I'm struggling with the most right now is "Why not us"?
And Dude. Did they have to live right next door?
Sigh.
I've taken my conversation with Pam to private e-mail, where it probably belonged in the first place. I'm just having a bad week and finding out about the fifteen year old next door neighbor being pregnant just brought up some feelings that I thought I was over. I guess those feelings will always be a part of me and will never completely go away. Not everyone will share those feelings and that's O.K. too.
Friday, March 07, 2008
TGIF
P.S. I'm seriously considering going to see a chiropractor. I have never been to one though, and I have some fears and doubts. My General Practitioner is strongly against them, but I have a friend who goes to one and swears she feels a million times better after seeing him. Any personal experience and/or advice?
My husband wants me to feel better soon because I am seriously in pain and very grouchy.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Digital Scrapping
Marginally Better
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Monday, March 03, 2008
Camping
Sunday, March 02, 2008
3 Words
Here' s their explanation of it:
If one word can convey a lot about your state of mind, just think how much three words could reveal. That hope has been more than fulfilled with "Your Three Words," the hugely successful video montage that ends every episode of i-CAUGHT. From military spouses and their children saying "I Miss You" to their loved ones in Iraq, to young couples celebrating with the sign "Having a Baby," the video uploads have been eloquent expressions from i-CAUGHT viewers harnessing the power of the Internet to speak out. To be heard. To share. Each week, more and more viewers have sent in their homemade tributes, and "Your Three Words" has grown to become one of the most anticipated and surprising parts of the show. It's as if the old-fashioned question that kicked off the segment -- "How was your week?" -- had been missing from the landscape, and TV viewers couldn't wait to answer it. And there's still time for you join in the conversation. Tell us how your week was. From the sublime to the ridiculous, nothing's too big or too small to send in. Write your three words on your palm, cut it out in letters, paste it (strategically -- and tastefully) over your body. Shoot it with your digital camera, webcam or cell phone, and upload it to the i-CAUGHT page. "Your Three Words" is your chance to speak your mind, a handful -- and a heartful -- at a time.
You can watch the most recent one(from today) here:
Three Words Montage
Here's another one
And One More
I cry every time I watch these. Some of them are so poignant. One of my fellow bloggers came up with the idea to have other bloggers participate in this every week. I love this idea. So every Sunday I will post a picture with my three words for the week.
Here are my three words this week:
When I told my husband about it, he wanted to join in too. So here are his three words: