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.