AAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I MISS THE GOOD 'OLE DAYS WHEN WE ALL SURVIVED WITHOUT CELL PHONES.! I REALLY THINK LIFE WAS A LOT SIMPLER AND CALMER THEN! MY CARRIER HAS SCREWED UP SO MANY TIMES WITHIN THE LAST COUPLE OF MONTHS AND TODAY'S WAS THE LAST STRAW!! THIS TIME IT REALLY EFFECTED MY HUSBAND AND HIS WORK. SO I'VE HAD IT! AND WHAT I HATE THE MOST IS I NOW HAVE TO SHOP AROUND FOR A NEW CARRIER AGAIN. I HAVEN'T HAD TO DO THIS FOR 4 YEARS!!

Ouch

I've had a sore throat since Saturday that I just can't seem to shake. It started as one of the normal signs of a cold. But all other signs have quickly died away except for the throat. Nothing else seems to be wrong and it only hurts in the morning, a little off and on during the day, and a little while before bed. It's getting quite annoying. I really don't want to go into the doc for it right now because we don't get our insurance until Feb. 6, which isn't that far away. I don't feel bad anymore in any other way. I am more tired lately, but that's usual for me around this time of month. Guess I'll just keep an eye on it. I think it's probably mostly due to allergy drainage, but I hate sore throats more than almost anything else.

Finally!

A lot of finallies to write about today.
Today I finally get to be sick and rest up. And of coarse on the day I am allowed to I'm too fidgety! I started to get a cold over the weekend, but so much has happened I never got the chance to rest much for it.
This weekend I finally got to get together with Lori to do our cookie baking. Larry made sure of it. We spent an entire day together and really had a blast. We chit chatted while we picked out three recipes to make. (2 cookies and one brownie) All ended up being chocolate of coarse, but what can you do? That will be the results when you put to chocolate obsessed woman together.
While at Kroger getting our supplies for baking and lunch, a mishap occurred which now leaves me with having to buy new tennis shoes. Right as we turned onto the baking isle, a woman dropped her glass bottle of some kind of hot sauce (didn't care much for that smell!) Lori was the closest to her and missed all splatters. I was the next closest and my light grey tennis shoes acquired some large red-orange spotting. Another woman was the farthest and her pants and coat were spotted. I felt bad for the woman who did the dropping. She was very apologetic and kept making sure everyone was OK. I told her I was fine. But, alas, the shoes are too light colored and have a rough leather finish that is not forgiving to messes of this color. I will make these my new mowing shoes (my other pair are getting uncomfortable), and I will get a new pair. At least these ones were a couple years old now. Still in good shape, but not a heart breaking loss.
After a nice comforting lunch of grilled cheese and tomato soup and some more talking, we got down to baking. We almost screwed up the cookies royally a couple times, but were able to catch it in time. Lori, who really is very rarely scatter brained, blamed it on the baby. She says she really is finding she gets like this now with the pregnancy. I didn't have a good excuse like hers so I used my brain surgery again and the new hole left behind. he he Sometimes that surgery comes in handy to get me out of a silly situation :) We ended up making only the cookies since we talked the day away. But they came out good. We made chocolate chip crunch cookies (the dough was still pretty warm when we added the chips, so they melted right away making the cookies chocolate crunch cookies), and a mint chocolate cookie that is by far my favorite. It tastes more like a fudge mint cookie.
But you are asking what did I mean by just now getting to be sick. I started to get a cold over the weekend they really had me feeling crummy. But Larry ended up with something worse. He got a severe migraine Sunday night. He use to get them a lot, but hasn't had one like this since I've known him. It causes him to get sick to his stomach, half his body goes numb, and he goes blind. So I took care of him Sunday night and he stayed home Monday due to still having some blindness. He is better now and we are keeping our fingers crossed he can go another 6 or more years without another one. I hate him having them because he's in so much pain and there's really no way to help him. Holly was a wonderful nurse too!!
Well I'll go rest now, just wanted to post while I'm so fidgety.

Before and After

I've been wanting to do this post for a while, but keep forgetting. Happenings of yesterday made me remember.

Yesterday - I was up at Walmart picking up a few groceries. As I was heading to the check out I got a sharp pain in my head. Best way for me to describe the location is it was where your head starts to curve from the back to the top. That is not near the location my tumor was removed. The tumor was in the area of my head where it curves from the back to the bottom right before your neck. What got me worried is it gave me an instant headache that was different from any headaches I normally get (I don't get headaches very often, not even when I had the tumor). It also made me get dizzy when I was checking the parking lot as I was backing out. I haven't had a dizzy spell like that in a long time now. Once I got home my neck felt stiff and sore and I started to get tired and weak. All this was bothersome so I called my neurosurgeon's office and left a message for the PA to call me back. She did, and she felt it probably wasn't really anything to worry about right now, and to just keep an eye on it. After thinking and talking with my mom about it, we think we figured out what it was. The weakness clued us in. Yesterday I had a sugary bowl of cereal for breakfast, something I haven't had in a while. And from past experiences, we know sometimes I don't handle that well. And I did remember that I had gotten hungry for lunch much earlier than normal. So I probably had a sugar rush that may have given me a mild but sudden migraine.

What was most upsetting is when the PA called, I discovered she was a new PA, and a good portion of the staff that was working for my doctor this summer is no longer there. This was still a very nice and caring person, but I liked having it where when I called, they knew who I was right away and were very personal with me.

Something else that had been bothering me is the back of my head where the surgery was performed. Right now I have a lot of pain and sensitivity in the back of my head due to all the fusing of the nerves back together. I was told this could last a long time (brushing my hair is quite painful). One of the things I was told to do to help reteach the nerves what feelings are OK is to rub and pat it back there. I've been doing this and have noticed that the bone feels odd back there. I finally remember to ask Larry to check it for me. He said it's OK. It's just where to bone was put back in and it's just different now due to the way he had to replace it.

Anyway I've been wanting to post these comparison pictures for quite a while of before and after the surgery. I just with I had some high school pictures loaded on here so you could see the before before pictures. The ones before the tumor effected me.

• This picture was taken on vacation a little over 4 months before the surgery. You notice my head is greatly tilted. This is due to the tumor. This would happen in almost every picture I took since spring of 2001. To me it felt like I was looking straight at the camera. If someone would turn my head towards the camera properly (like when we would take family pictures), if felt like the whole world was spinning.

• This picture was taken after Larry's work Christmas party a little over 4 months after the surgery. This is the first picture I took after the surgery where I noticed I'm looking straight at the camera without someone telling me how to hold my head.

These pictures bring me great joy because it really shows the difference my surgery has made and how important it really was to have and how God is so wonderful and has taken care of a problem that was really bothersome and embarrassing to me and one I thought I would live with my whole life.

Another rejoice. A couple weeks ago I had a first in a number of years. I walked up and down some stairs without holding on to a rail or some one's hand. I really have a new appreciation for children learning to walk. ;)

Wanted to share this more for myself than anyone else, but I hope you find it interesting and it that I am able to show more of God's glory and greatness through my experience. Have a wonderful day!!

P.S.

This is how I found Flash this morning. Too funny!!

A litte bit of my world in pictures

This is my stocking stuffer Larry bought me, or I should say stocking holder since it was a little too large to fit in my stocking. It's a little green house herb garden. I planted it Jan 6, and as you can see it really is growing quickly. I keep it in my kitchen window and haven't had to water it except for the initial planting. You can see a little of the condensation that builds up daily.

Here is my hat I knitted over the weekend. I knitted Larry one yesterday, but he has quickly latched on to it due to the cold weather and working outside a good portion of the day.

And here is one of my cats, Flash, enjoying a snooze on his favorite chair last night in a slightly peculiar position. Usually (like right now) you can find him curled up on the front pillow napping the day away. My other cats Matty and Milee were snoozing there yesterday morning with Matty in a comical position too, but he moved before I could get the camera.

Just wanted to share a few pictures today. Hope you are all having a great day and staying warm!

Weekend Review

Well this weekend didn't go anywhere near the original plan. Lori and I have been planning to find a weekend to get together and do some cookie baking since before Christmas. We finally narrowed it down to meeting on the 19th, and had been set on that day for a couple of weeks now. But life took over and we had to move it again. Holly was suppose to be going to her mom's this last weekend, so Larry and I started planning for him some time to work on his Jeep at his buddy's house while I was off doing my baking. Unfortunately, Holly ended up with a virus that settled in her ear along with a ton of nose drainage. So that required one of us to cancel plans. I had my heart set on getting away for some time for me especially since Larry had a weekend in East TX last weekend. But instead it had to go to Larry. I haven't mentioned what his new job is which will lead into why he got the weekend. Larry is the director of maintenance operations for the Mercantile apartment building, the Element apartment building, and as of this coming Friday, the Post Wilson apartment building (and a few other buildings that are in the holdings before they start their remodelings) all in downtown Dallas. The Mercantile and Element, are still being gutted and remodeled/built so Larry is over the construction and making sure it is right down to every outlet plate. But the Post Wilson is already up and running. His company is closing and taking over the building this Friday. So things are about to get a little hairy for him. The current staff with the Post Wilson are going with their current owners to new jobs, so Larry and the rest of the Mercantile staff will be taking over. This will also put Larry and his assistant on call every other week (they haven't hired any more maintenance staff, so they will be taking it all on until more are hired on or until they can get some temps out to give them a hand, but temps can't be on call). So due to this and the fact that the buddy who's house he was going to work at is his assistant, it was a must to let him go for the weekend.
So I was greatly disappointed, but it's what you do when you're married, right? So Sat. morning I took Holly into the doc, and while we were filling her prescription, it was time for Larry to take off to his buddy's house, he lives 60 miles away. So Holly and I picked up lunch at Target while waiting on her meds (except for easily getting run down and blowing her nose every two seconds, she seemed like she was fine, which was a true blessing). So we returned home and spent the day watching DVDs. I also knitted my own new hat over the weekend (took pictures, but not sure how to download them to the laptop). And now I'm working on one for Larry.
Larry returned Sunday morning. And I can't tell you how happy I was to see him. After a week and two weekends at home except for a couple of errands here and there and with very little adult companionship, I was dying to get out and spend some time with another adult around. Now I never got a verbal thank you for forfeiting my weekend, but I sure did gets lots of affection and spoiling once he got home. We ran a few errands before Holly was run down again, and freely looked at all I wanted. Then we went to IHOP for dinner, went home where Larry and Holly sang on the mics and I finished up my knitting.
Monday we slept in, did a few chores, and tried to decide on a movie to go see. We ended up renting some movies and ran to the grocery store to get the supplies needed for Larry to make stew.
So it started off as a bit of a disappointing and boring weekend, but turned into a super nice one with just some time to really enjoy each other and share some love.

Overdue Excitement

This announcement was actually a fabulous Christmas gift, but I wanted to make sure that it was spread verbally before I posted on it.
Congrats are sent out to one of my closest friends Lori and Erik on the pending arrival of their little "bean". Currently due July 25. I say currently 'cause it seems like as time gets closer that date always changes for most people.
The little one got its name "the bean" due to Lori's early cravings of bean burritos. I said that maybe it should be renamed "the avocado" due to its growth and her craving of avocados in addition to burritos.
Larry and I have not been blessed with our own "bean", but have been looking into the medical procedures that need to be done to have one. Those have been put on hold for the past few months due to the loss of insurance with Larry's job change, but will be picking up in February when our new insurance kicks in.
But God has blessed us with the coming of Lori and Erik's new little one. The "bean" is going to be so spoiled by his or her Uncle Larry and Auntie Toby. How excited am I you ask. I have had a baby gift purchased and set aside since a month before they were married, just 6 years ago this month!
So to my wonderful friends, I send my congrats out again!! This time without screaming my excitement in your ear ;) And a word of warning, I will be over much, much more! I love you both very much and I have no doubt that you two will be fabulous parents.

We had a bit of an off night last night, so I didn't get a picture of Holly and her hat, but here is that one of the tree I promised some months back. Aren't the colors just fabulous?!

Today Holly is home from school. Starting yesterday morning she had some pain in the lymph node on her left side of her neck. It was slightly swollen at dinner time last night, and at about 4:30am, she came in crying she was in so much pain. It had swollen over night. So I went ahead and kept her home since she didn't sleep well and was misierable with the pain. Nothing else is bothering her, so I'm sure it's just a new reaction due to allergies. She gets allergies so severely and with getting older I think this is just a new symptom. And with the drastic weather change, it probably brought something in to stir it up. So she is resting loading up on water to flush it out, and keeping warm rags on the spot to sooth it and take some of the swelling out.

Guess I won'be getting my chores done today either (yesterday was filled with interuptions that left me behind). Oh well.

not normal yet

Well things haven't really settled in yet, so I've been putting off writing on my blog. But last night before I went to sleep, I was reading my Jan. Redbook to hurry and finish it so I can read my Feb. one that came in the mail yesterday. And there were some articles in there that inspired me to get back into it again. I haven't gotten back on here mainly because the home computer is not up and running right now. We have only my husband's laptop in commission right now, and I'm not fond of typing on it. I always bump the little mouse pad with my palm and hit the caps lock button most of the time when I'm reaching for the "a".
I went back to subbing last week, but am off this week. And Kristi was right, the middle school students really are the best to work with. I have horrible memories of middle school, so I never expected them to be so well behaved. I have been sticking with mostly half days, which makes sure I'm home in plenty of time before Holly gets home. This helps to keep the stress down especially if I take a high school job (they really are a bit hard to handle since school boards are so scared of them now and let them do ANYTHING they want). And it is something for me to get out of the house and feel productive with, without making it a struggle or feel stressful to keep the house chores kept up like I like.
This last weekend Larry went to East TX in hopes of a possible sale off of Craig's list on some items him and his brother had listed. Holly and I stayed behind. We had a party for my friend Kristi's daughter Megan's 1st birthday. It was a fabulous party. And if Larry and I are ever blessed with a baby, I am putting her in charge of his/her's first birthday party.
On Sunday, I was relaxing watching my DVDs of Gilmore Girls and working with my kniffty knitters. (I keep trying to learn to knit on my own, but I have fumble fingers and stay too busy lately to spend a number of hours getting good enough where I can lay it down without loosing my place). Holly suddenly had the urge to work on one too, and asked to knit on my project. Well I don't like to share my knitting except for finished products. I also didn't want to share my yarn due to Holly's history of no patience with working with the knitters, and instead of calmly working she knits for a few minutes and then ties the yarn in knots. Since she had some allowance coming, I payed her and we ran up to Walmart to buy her some yarn that she could use on one of my knitter looms. She was so excited that she choose a yarn that was priced where she could buy her own knitting hook too. We went home and I started her on the loom for a hat for her. She took over once I got her started, and then sat for a number of hours straight knitting away. She has never had that much patience for anything for that long except a movie/TV. She made a whole hat that evening!! I was so proud of her I've been bragging to everyone. She was able to wear it to school the next day, and just as Larry had thought (he's super proud too) many of her peers want her to now make them one. :) I haven't had the chance to take a picture of it, but that is priority tonight and I will post it tomorrow.
OK more another day.

As soon as...

things get back to normal next week, I will sit down and write a long post.
Hope everyone is having a great New Year's so far!!