Pround and Annoyed

Proud:
Starting around mid February every year my youngest gets a severe case of Spring Fever. This illness causes her to make MANY BAD choices at school. It clicked with me towards the end of our rough time last year that it did go hand in hand with the season change. So I had talks with her about it early this year and made threats. Well it really seemed to be doing the trick. Then I found out she had been struggling with one problem all year. The teachers had been handling it themselves, so I didn't find out till more than half the school year was over. When I found out, I got creative with the punishment and am proud to say I'm sticking to it. She has had an occasional screw up, but for the most part has really turned things around this year and I am VERY proud of her.
Annoyed:
Insurance companies are great, they really help lower the costs of medical bills. But then they can be a severe pain too, especially when they do all they can to get out of paying for things. I went to the pharmacy to get a refill on Larry's daily migraine preventative on Tuesday. When I went to pay for it they told me insurance had declined paying for it. WHAT?!! This stuff is an absolute must for him to have, and it's VERY expensive. We are having to go into "super save mode", as Lori calls it, right now and I don't want to pay an extra $70 in addition to my high copay on this one. We have been getting it for months with no problems. What the deal is, is they want us to mail order it to save money. Actually a great idea for us now, but would be nice to be warned that we need to do this before I'm trying to refill his pills due to having only 2 left! Thankfully when he went to his last appointment, he explained some of our situation to the doctor and she was kind enough to make some adjustments to his prescription to help us. Well this adjustment allowed me to get an immediate fill at the pharmacy and still get a huge supply mailed to us. So all in all it is turning out to help us, but it had me panicky for a bit there.

Cheers!! and T.T.T.

For Larry! He had his appointment with his neurologist today, and she reported that his EEG came back with good results...no signs of seizures!! Now on to have standard blood work done.
So for my Tiny Task Tuesday report: Last Thursday I took my mom to see my eye doctor. On the way we took the toll road. I have not remembered to switch my tag to the new car, so we had to stop at the booths and pay. And since I had no change we went to the ones with people. I am always giving with my please and thank you's and this time no different. And after one toll I recieved a very bright and almost surprised thank you back from my own thank you that I gave. So small and I could see it ment so much. And that's what T.T.T. is all about: making things a little better and brighter for others!!
Coming soon: Back to getting creative and making things again. My to-make list is growing and growing. Need to get a little room made for the more items that are sure to be added to it.

Keep pushing through

That's the motto around here. Things are still upside down here, but we are getting peeks of turning back right. I know it's all very cryptic, but for now it must stay that way. Know that we are definitely feeling the prayers. Please keep them coming. Along with ours we know they will be heard. There is a plan in all of this, and when the time is right He will show it to us.
This weekend we went to East TX to visit family and let Larry relieve some stress as he had a little fun shooting off his guns and playing Wii with Chris and Craig.
Before all the shooting began I was talking to my MIL about Oreo (he's our dog we picked out from a litter that a dog had that was staying with her at the time when we lived in East TX. we left him with her though when we moved back to Ft. Worth because we didn't have a yard and taking him from his freedom would be cruel.). We were discussing how he use to be afraid of going in the house until the tornado hit out there a few years ago. Now he wants inside at the smallest noise. We mentioned how he still doesn't get in cars though. Later that evening after all the shooting was done I went to the truck to get some cash for Haylee to go to the movies with her cousins. Look what my sweet dog did as I was getting in my purse.He's 5 1/2 years old now, but he's really just a big baby. So sweet and mild tempered.
Also, Happy Birthday to my mother-in-law Linda!!! We love you so very much!!!!!

PLEASE!

keep my family in your prayers. Our lives are very suddenly and completely turned upside down right now. I can't really explain what is going on due to not being able to wrap my own thoughts around it all right now. I will say it has nothing to do with anyone's physical health. We are all fine as long as you don't count our sanity. We just are in desperate need of guidance on what to do.

T.T.T.

Check out the picture on the side. To better understand what it's all about and what's going on, go to my friend Twinkle's page every Tuesday.

Opals, Pizzas, and Pickles = Valentine's?

In our family, we celebrate Valentine's by just relaxing and enjoying being together. This year for the most part was no different, and in my opinion the best yet (and not just due to the big surprise I got).

What I usually enjoy the most about the holiday is the colors and decorations. I LOVE pink, red, and white, and a little purple added in. I also like the cute little trinkety decorations and gifts. I did a great job of resisting purchasing them this year. Go me!

As for gifts: For Holly this year, I got her a gift that also helped in other areas. I found a cute pink and white outfit. Pink for Valentine's, and outfit because the kid has grown a ton this year and is in need of some spring/summer clothes. Also, Wednesday is Spring Picture Day at school and I thought this would be great for that. But the outfit just didn't look right on her, so I will return it and get her a cute dress I saw at another store. For Larry I got a new game for him for the Wii. So as you can see I didn't get anyone anything big just things I thought they would enjoy.

Larry surprised me with this:

I was totally not expecting this! I had told him back at Christmas I wanted one, but I told him so he could use it as an excuse of something to look for when he was taking a buddy out to run errands while I could helped his girlfriend set up for his surprise birthday party. I already have an opal, but it has been passed down to the next October born female in my family for a number of years and is becoming quite delicate in its setting. I have not liked any of the suggestions made when I have taken it in to various jewelry repair shops, so I don't wear it. So Larry has known for a long time my want. This was long coming I found out. He's just been looking for one that had my other birthstone, Tourmaline (which is pink!), too.

Like I said though, the day was really spent just relaxing. We watched movies and ordered in for lunch. You would think on Valentine's you would be all about the hearts, and this would include being healthy. We were all about the hearts too, but definitely not healthy ones. Our lunch:

HEART SHAPED PIZZAS!

For dinner, we had planned to go out to eat, but after ordering pizza and being lazy, we just stayed in. I ended up making these:

FRIED PICKLES!! (Told you we weren't heart healthy for the holiday.) Larry has been going out to lunch with vendors and co-workers a lot lately and he keeps telling me they keep going to Hooters where he gets fried pickles. This greatly upsets me! Not the Hooters part, the fried pickles part! I am not a jealous wife when it comes to other women. I totally trust my husband. But I do get jealous of his eating those pickles! None of the guys he goes with believes Larry when he tells the them that I only get upset about the pickles and not the restaurant they went to. They all say they can't tell their wives/girlfriends they went and will even pay in cash so they don't find out. To prove to the other guys he means it when he tells them I don't get jealous, he's mentioned going to Hooters to them with me standing there. We both laugh when we are alone again at the scared looks that come across their faces when he does it and I just stand their enjoying the conversation! So anyway, my point was that Larry had originally promised to go and pick me up an order of pickles for a Valentine's gift. But I decided it would be fun to see if we could make our own. They came out pretty good. Still need to do a little more tweaking on the recipe I found, but I'm pleased! Heck, Larry had me make another batch tonight to take with him to work tomorrow.

Hope everyone else had just as enjoyable VALENTINE'S as we did!

Bustin' for Georgia

So I have been trying to go to Georgia to visit Charisse for a couple of years now. The first year I planned to go was summer of '07. But a pesky little tumor put a stop to that. The next time was this last summer, but the funding I was expecting for it didn't come as planned. This year it should come, but in case it doesn't I have a plan in order. The plan is actually for spending money on the trip. Charisse has informed me many times that 2009 is the year for me to go!

So here is a picture of my plan now in action:

Isn't she cute! She already has over $11 in her after just starting work on Saturday. Larry has been graciously donating what extra cash he has had. I've learned if I put my money in a pig where I can't see it, I am less likely to "borrow" from it for that small and sudden need from the grocery store that I don't want to use my check card on, for letting Holly buy lunch on a day I'm too lazy to make it, or to get a soda when I have a desperate need for caffeine and bubbles. So if you are feeling generous, feel free to feed Miss Georgia. She seems to be hungry 24/7! :)

And here is a picture of Larry from this weekend all hooked up to the EEG monitor.

Lately I have been trying to get back on track to being healthier. I mentioned before how I was starting to exercise. Well I've fallen off that wagon due to the holidays and am having a hard time getting back on. I need to get my workout chart made again. That really seemed to help seeing all the smileys. I wasn't doing good with eating healthy though. I am working on that now (see just need to put the two together and I'll really start getting some where). My main problem right now is snacking. So I've been trying to buy healthier snacks for myself lately. Thing is, I'm hitting my time of month where the need for chocolate is life threatening (for others around me that is), not it's normal just want. So I'm trying to find better ways of feeding that monster. I try to buy chocolate milk for myself. Then I kill two birds with one stone...chocolate in a better way, and calcium. I hide the jug behind a bottle of wine in the fridge in the garage though or Holly will drink my stash, hehe. I also have been eating milk chocolate covered raisins (a family favorite of both my childhood family and my married family). These aren't that healthy, but better than pigging out on regular chocolate candy. Also I get only 13oz. for $4. So this helps me to ration. They have dark chocolate raisins. I know that dark chocolate is actually good for you so I should try these, but I'm not the biggest fan of dark choc. and can only eat it in certain things. I don't think I would be happy with dark choc. raisins when I'm so use to the milk choc. ones. I have been wanting to try the dark chocolate covered cranberries. I think the tartness of the cranberries would be just right for the dark choc., but haven't been willing to spend $5 on 11oz. I broke down and bought some last night. And now I have a new addiction!

OK, I've rambled enough today. Hope everyone has a fabulous day!

Happy Birthday

to my big brother, Clint! He is 32 today. And he is a fabulous big brother! We all love you and hope you have a great day!

Enjoying my work

Here are pictures of Lucas enjoying the blankets I made for him. They weren't kidding on how much kids like them!
This weekend just won't end! Larry has a lot less room to easily move around than we thought and he's going a bit stir crazy being stuck in the house all weekend. He's always been understanding when I get like that after being stuck in the house for long periods of time, but I'm sure he'll be even better than I can imagine to me now! :)

Prayers for the hubby, please!

I can't remember, but am pretty sure, I've mentioned Larry's sever migraines in the past. We have been seeing a Neurologist who specializes in this area.
At his last visit on Jan. 20, she didn't like some of the symptoms he described that he gets when he has a migraine or if he feels one about to start before the meds kick in and block it. So she has decided to have him do a 48 hr EEG to see if he is having mild seizures. When she mentioned that I told her about our nephew having seizures. And when asking my sis-in-law the details of his she informed me Larry had a great aunt who had them too. So obviously there is a family history of those as well as migraines.
So I am taking him to the doc around 4 to get him all hooked up, and he will be on the monitor all weekend. He will be required to stay home all weekend and just veg. But who wants to go out all hooked up anyway?
So please pray that he's not too uncomfortable this weekend and that the test tells us something. Preferably something good.

The Story

In all my retelling of the van story, I seemed to have gotten mixed up and thought I put it on here. I guess not so here it is:

On New Year's Eve we had dropped the van off early in the evening after picking up Larry's truck. He was going out of town the next day to go hunting (I stayed home due to a super-duper nasty cold). While he was gone I was going to drive his little MR2. Well when a friend took me to pick it back up, it was gone. The police found it a few days later in the condition you see. To the best of our guess and with what happened, we figure some young people decided to celebrate New Years with a different kind of "fireworks". They somehow got in to the van, found our hidden key, went for a joy ride, stole the battery (of all the things to steal. and they even tried to cut it out before wising up and just unscrewing it), and then lit the seat behind the driver seat. The windows were rolled up, so it smothered itself out, otherwise the whole thing would have burnt to a crisp.
The reason we have it back is a whole other mess. We had an insurance payment I had to pay on NYE, and every time I called to take care of it they said their computers were down due to updates, call back in a couple of hours. Well I guess when I did get one supposedly working, it really wasn't. There was some screw up and our payment was returned, causing us to supposedly not have coverage on the date it was stolen. No one found out about this till mid January after the claim was almost complete. And the person to discover first was actually me when going through records. So even though I supposedly didn't have coverage (I went to remake the payment and they told me they wouldn't except it. I had to pay a balance owed, which happened to be money to cover the grace period which is when the van was stolen, before I could set up a new policy.) They had almost completed the claim 3 weeks after the loss. But once that was brought up, I wasn't allowed to fix it. They just put a dead stop and denied it. We have spoken with a couple people who said that what they did was wrong. Weather the payment return was our fault or not, they shouldn't have gone that far with it after the mistake (which was handling all of it), to then just deny us. So we are starting the process of fighting that now...ugh.
So as you can see with all this, 2009 hasn't been my best year so far.

Results

Here are pictures of our van after it was returned to us. It was a silver with light grey interior. For those of you who know me well, you know I take VERY good care of my cars. Other than it needing to be washed and vacuumed, my car looked brand new before it was taken. The only dents on the outside were from a hail storm Lori and I were in. And there was only about 5 small ones of those on the hood. The tow company put a large one on the rear and scrapped up the rear passenger side. So sad, took some mean people only minutes to ruin something I had kept nice for just over 2 years.

Photo 2/2

Can you believe it's already February? January seemed long, but it still seems like February got her quick. So here is my February photo:

This is a picture of Charisse, Lorelli, Chevy, and Sylvia (Lori's father- and mother-in-law) in the hospital waiting room waiting on Lucas to make his arrival on 7/17/08.